IN 



M EMORI AM. 



C 



A pall of withered leaves sad fays are bearing 

Through the long shadows of the woodland dim, 

While mourning nymphs, their golden tresses tearing, 
Weep o'er the urn, and wail the funeral hymn. 







NEW YORK. 

J. HOWARD BROWN, 

21 Park Place. 



.4 



*<*>* 



^ 



<V 



THE LIBRARY 
Of CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



Copyright, 

1882, 

By J. HOWARD BROWN. 



PROEM 



The subject of this tribute-sketch was a thoroughly 
self-made man, but born with those generous sentiments 
and tendencies to refinement and culture which make 
an infallible guide to a high and noble life. Born in the 
City of New York in 1812, the son of an Englishman, 
who fell, during the war of 181 2, in the cause of his 
adopted country, and his mother being a native of New 
York, he felt that he was doubly baptized into the spirit 
of the Republic. Few elements more fittingly represent 
the great interests of agricultural and manufacturing 
wealth than that which tobacco occupies in the indus- 
tries of the country. There are no parts of the civilized 
world where " John Anderson's Solace " has not found 
ics winning way. 

In the wise and successful prosecution of this business 
he acquired a large fortune, and he was blessed with a 
disposition to devote it generously to Patriotism, Science, 
Art, and Humanity. While still in the full vigor of his 
prime, he gratified his tastes for study, society, travel, 



4 PROEM. 

and culture. Often pressed to accept the chief magis- 
tracy of his native city, a membership of Congress, and 
the highest offices in the Empire State, he persistently 
declined all public honors, although his lively sympathy 
with public affairs was never abated. Like all other 
large-minded men, while strongly opposed to the adop- 
tion of extreme measures against the South, yet when 
the Rebellion made an earnest struggle for the integrity 
of the Union inevitable, he threw the whole weight of 
personal and pecuniary interests on the side of the Re- 
public. 

When it was believed that New York State lacked 
legal authority to rais'e a bonded fund for the support of 
the families of drafted men, he headed the subscription 
for the special unauthorized loan of half a million ; his 
example was instantly followed, and the money was 
raised. So, too, when Jersey City could not legally pro- 
vide for putting its contingent into the field, he sent to 
the Mayor his check for sixty thousand dollars ; in both 
cases his acts inflame a deeper patriotism. 

When the cry of " Union and Independence for Italy " 
struck the shores of America, it met one of its most 
earnest and generous responses in the heart of John 
Anderson, and he led the popular movement in this 
country, which was so profoundly felt throughout the 
land of Columbus. In that stirring crisis, when the eyes 



PROEM. 



5 



of so many thousand exiles were turned towards their 
beloved land, and eminent among their patriots, General 
Avezzana, and many other brave Italians in New York, 
finding themselves without means to join their idolized 
leader in their decisive struggle, Mr. Anderson came at 
once to their rescue ; and the promptness of his action 
was fully realized when it was learned that Avezzana 
reached Garibaldi only a few hours before the glorious 
victory of Caserta, where he had only time to gird on 
his sword and lead the left wing of the Italian army. 
On a subsequent page will be found a touching letter 
from "the Dictator of the Two Sicilies," expressing his 
gratitude to " the American benefactor of Italian lib- 
erty." 

Again he projected and carried out the memorable 
Italian meeting in New York, December, i860, heading 
the fund to aid Garibaldi in his desperate struggle. And 
later still, when all-united Italy was singing her paeans 
of gratitude and triumph on the achievement of her per- 
fect union, from the glacier peaks of the Alps to the 
burning crown of Etna, and Garibaldi had retired to his 
modest home, it became known that he had declined a 
munificent gift from the Parliament of the kingdom of 
Italy, preferring poverty to a stipend from a throne, 
since his dream of life had been to see the Roman Re- 
public restored in all its ancient glory. At this moment 



5 PROEM. 

John Anderson, who had been the welcome guest of the 
old warrior in his home, wrote to him an affectionate 
letter, enclosing a draft for 5,000 francs, and announcing 
that a like annuity would be continued during the rest of 
his life. Such a tribute from the American Republic, 
and a cherished friend, the unselfish and constant demo- 
crat could understand and accept ; and it enabled him 
to decline gifts from his countrymen, who had thus been 
stimulated by the spontaneous act of a far-off foreigner, 
to a higher recognition of the claims of their chief de- 
liverer. 

Somewhat later, in 1873, learning that Professor Ag- 
assiz, the chieftain of Natural Science, was in search of a 
fitting location for a Summer School for the instruction 
of teachers in Natural History, Mr. Anderson presented to 
him his beautiful Island of Penikese, with fifty thousand 
dollars to aid in the creation of an endowment fund for 
the support of the institution. The school was duly in- 
augurated under the name of what Agassiz persisted in 
calling "The Anderson School of Natural History," 
over which he presided in person during the first year, 
when he ceased from his labors, and passed on to his 
immortality. 

Such, with the brevity of a monumental inscription, is 
the outline, which will be more fully elaborated in the 
following pages by those who loved him so well. 



AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. 



I. 



It is the pride of our Republic that it opens to 
every citizen all the paths to wealth and honor. 
Here there is freedom for glory as well as struggle. 
On every side we see illustrations of this crowning 
feature of our social life. In any community of any 
State, the rule holds good, that the men who have 
done most to build up the public edifice of order 
and prosperity, are those who carved out their own 
fortunes. They grew strong by hard work of brain 
or muscle, or both ; inured to carrying their own 
burdens, they found it easy to carry or lighten the 
burdens of others. And thus villages, cities, terri- 
tories, and States, have from the beginning sprung 
into life and power. May this growth long con- 
tinue, for institutions which have such origins 
promise well for a long future. 

7 



AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. 



II. 



The Coopers, Peabodys, Corcorans, Vassars, 
Packers, and Andersons, with so many others of 
the shining host of the benefactors of the Republic, 
began at the bottom of the hill, and marched sturd- 
ily to the top, leaving the indices of their progress 
at every step. To be born rich is not so good as 
to acquire wealth honorably. Books and colleges 
are well, but the best educated man has to be his 
own teacher. Experience is the only master whose 
lessons are thoroughly learned ; they are the only 
lessons which are sure never to be forgotten, while 
it is proverbially true that lessons which we fully 
learn we can most successfully teach to others. In 
no country has this philosophy been so well carried 
out as here : no nation has ever had so many bene- 
factors, and their number is growing in geometrical 
order of advancement every hour. Hardly can a 
day's sun lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific 
seas without swelling this roll of civic honor. Some 
new light flashes over the name of a man who has 
endowed a Library for his native town ; or a School 
of Learning on a larger scale ; or given land, or 



AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. g 

money, or both, for a Park for ornament, health, 
and pleasure ; or a Rural Cemetery whose land- 
scape beauties banish all the ruder associations 
of the grave-yard ; or commissioning a statue or 
founding a monument, a bust, or a chef d'ceuvre of 
painting to commemorate the name of some one 
whose genius or virtue has blessed mankind. 

III. 

The year i860 — which was for our nation ushered 
in by clouds which began to dim the hitherto un- 
dimmed future of the Union, and thickened into 
the blackness of the fearful storm which left, over 
a long period, little but a red record of blood — 
brought to our shores from the other side of the 
Atlantic the news of the attempted resurrection of 
a Republic more than two thousand years older 
than our own. Nor will the coincidence of these 
two strange and hardly prophesied events ever 
cease to impress the minds of historians; for in 
the one case came premonitions of the death of 
the last of the Great Republics, with the dawning 
of the resurrection of the oldest on human records. 
If hope was to leave America with the fall of her 



IO AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. 

Republic, it would not be the last of constitutional 
liberty, if from her mouldy sepulchre the common- 
wealth of Cincinnatus was to bloom once more on 
the classic soil of Italy. 



IV. 



In other and busier days, John Anderson's pro- 
tracted dedication to honorable and enlightened 
labor, as a workman and manufacturer, and one of 
the world's leading merchants, had achieved wealth 
enough to enable him to determine how he might 
dedicate the afternoon of his life to the higher am- 
bitions which had inspired him through so many 
years of effort — and never having soiled his soul 
with the selfishness of a worldling, nor the greed of 
a miser, he had let the stream of his benevolence 
and the love of culture begin to flow in a deeper 
channel. Nor were these pure waters unaccus- 
tomed to the bed over which they had rippled like 
the glistening of a trout stream dancing on its glad 
way to the far-off ocean. Opportunities are always 
awaiting noble inspirations for bettering the world ; 
and when fortune smiles on industry and persistent 
effort, then records are made of good deeds which 



AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. n 

are not written in water. This thought always 
brings back to us those beautiful words of Long- 
fellow : 

" Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time." 



V. 



The hour for the emancipation of Italy from her 
old tyrants was sounding in the ears of many thous- 
and exiles, who had sanctified so many distant lands 
with their undried tears, still ready to lift their 
wearied arms to strike one more blow on the breasts 
of their spoilers, had they the means of returning to 
their native land. Two of the most illustrious of 
these patriots were here in our midst — Garibaldi, 
whose name had rung through the world where he 
had so often unsheathed his sword in the cause of 
struggling nations, then earning a hard but honest 
living on Staten Island making soap and candles ; 
and Avezzana, making his living in a humble path 
of commerce in New York. They were the men 
most needed in the coming crusade, for theirs were 



I2 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. 

the names oftenest on every liberty-loving lip in 
that distant Peninsula. Anderson, whose sympa- 
thies with the cause of Liberty everywhere were 
all alive, comprehended the crisis. He sought out 
Avezzana, who was pining to go home, whither 
Garibaldi had already gone, in the desperation of a 
heroism which leveled all the walls of despair. 

" Would you like to go to Italy, sir, and join in 
this movement ? " 

" I not only long to do so, but would start in an 
hour, if I had the means to go without leaving my 
family and children destitute." 

" How much would you require to start ? ' 

" Enough to get there ; but my family! " 

" Would five thousand dollars start you, if some 
one here should look after the family ? " 

" Yes, too abundant." 

" Well, here is a check for five thousand dollars, 
and if you can trust me, the family shall be pro- 
vided for till you return ; and if you fall I will look 
after them, at least while I live — and probably 
afterwards." 

How that hot Italian blood went leaping through 
those Italian veins, and how those manly tears of 
gratitude sprang from those eyes, needs no record. 



AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. 



13 



Within a few hours the waves of the Atlantic were 
being cut by the swiftest ocean steamer, and Avez- 
zana was on his way to Garibaldi's side. How for- 
tune favored this inspired act of the American, or 
in better words, how a protecting Providence spread 
its wings over this attempt to emancipate the most 
beautiful land on the earth, will best be seen by a 
brief account of the subsequent results. 



H 



LIBERTY. 



LIBERTY. 

I. 

No nation better understood the nature of the 
conflict going on in Italy, nor greeted her last strike 
for independence with a warmer sympathy than 
the people of the United States. Her story from 
Romulus and Remus and their suckled wolf-mother, 
down through the long ages, had grown as familiar 
to every American school-boy and school-girl,as the 
tradition of our own Putnam in his wolf-den. The 
founders of our Government had caught inspira- 
tion, and found a model in the Roman Common- 
wealth ; we had made her language the basis of 
classic education, and with her torch of light we 
had illuminated a new hemisphere discovered by 
one of her sons. It was, therefore, by no means 
strange that we should have hailed with such glad- 
ness the new rising of the Sun of Liberty which 
came blazing over the mouldering but not forgot- 
ten sepulchres of Brutus and Rienzi. 



LIBERTY, 1 5 



II. 



The national sentiment of our people needed 
only an opportunity for expression, and it found a 
proper occasion in a call for a mass-meeting, at 
Cooper Institute, headed by John Anderson, and 
followed by upwards of a thousand of our most 
prominent citizens in every walk of life. By accla- 
mation, the man who had led the way in organiz- 
ing the movement, and 'assumed the responsibility 
of all the expenses, was called to preside over the 
assembly which had never before, nor perhaps 
since, witnessed such a gathering of the learning, 
virtue, and splendor of the metropolis. It was 
a magnificent ovation to Liberty from the noblest 
assemblage of the citizens of the mightiest Repub- 
lic on the earth, and their feelings were fittingly ex- 
pressed in the opening " Address to the Italians," 
which had been prepared under the direct supervis- 
ion of Mr. Anderson, who was the presiding genius 
of the grand occasion, and who long lived to enjoy 
the gratitude of the Italian people, and the blessed 
luxury of doing good. 



1 6 LIBERTY. 



III. 



Address, to the People of Italy. 

Italians, Brothers : — We have heard of your union and 
triumph. The children of Washington hail you as you strike 
hands fraternally to make one nation, and take the place 
your ancestors held two thousand years ago — an empire 
amongst the empires. You are acting too wisely to need our 
counsel — too bravely to need our praise. So we only send 
you now our sympathy and congratulations. And why should 
we not ? We owe our very continent to one of your sons. 
Our eloquence to the faultless models of your ancient Senate. 
Our jurisprudence to Rome. Our poetry, sculpture, archi- 
tecture, painting and music to the great masters you gave to 
educate the world. You saved Christianity through the Dark 
Ages. You gave us the revival of letters and commerce, and 
the inauguration of our civilization. The mariner's compass 
for the ocean, and the telescope for the stars. The science 
of Fabricius to annihilate disease, and the sword of Garibaldi 
to give resurrection to liberty. W T hen you unsheathed the 
blade for the last mightest struggle, and the clarion called you 
to battle, every blast struck our ears, and our hearts almost 
stopped beating. It seemed too good to be true that Italy, 
twice queen of the world, should again become mistress of her 
own fortunes, and from every pure heart and home in our na- 
tion, from the cold rivers of Maine to the glittering banks of 
the Sacramento, went up our orisons for you. As steamer 
after steamer touched our coast, the news of your victories 



LIBERTY. 



17 



was flashed in a few seconds to thirty million exultant free- 
men. And when at last we saw that your cause was won, we 
could not restrain our joy, nor our thanksgiving to the God of 
everlasting liberty. We are now awaiting the grand con- 
summation. When the descendants of the men who drove 
Tarquin, the tyrant, and Catiline, the traitor, from the gates 
of the Eternal City, can say that not one hostile foot profanes 
your hallowed soil, then we shall expect you to achieve a still 
greater work, "the consolidation of a free, united, and invin- 
cible empire." In leaving the fields of Garibaldi's victories 
you are only waiting for new achievements — for you must yet 
realize all our hopes — you must yet fulfil your own destiny. 
Avezzana, one of our own citizens, sprang to Garibaldi's side. 
Neither he nor his leader ever faltered in battle, and they 
always brought back the colors. " We may die, but Italy 
will be free ! " Garibaldi asks for a million of men to perfect 
the work of Italian regeneration. Americans, citizens of 
Italy, France, Germany, and all Europe were with us in our 
great struggle, and shall we not now send back to the Old 
World some friendly aid and greeting to her new resurrec- 
tion of freedom ? We have never yet withheld our sympathy, 
nor will we now withhold our aid, for brave men striking for 
liberty ; and can we forget the countrymen of Columbus ? " 



IV. 

This address was received by the vast assembly 
with irrepressible enthusiasm. When the uproar 



j g LIBERTY. 

subsided, General John A. Dix, to whom Mr. 
Anderson had resigned the presidency of the meet- 
ing, called on Mr. Luther R. Marsh, the eminent 
lawyer and peerless orator, for the opening speeeh. 
It almost necessarily finds a place here, since it so 
fully interpreted the feelings of the assembly and 
met the dignity of so august an occasion. 



Fellow Citizens — We have met this night, not only to 
record our appreciation of the character and services of the 
great Italian, but also to contribute of our sympathy and 
means to help him and those for whom he toils in the conflicts 
that still await them in the cause of patriotism. It seems 
peculiarly appropriate that the land of Washington should 
extend the hand of love and aid to the country of Garibaldi. 
For, ere yet our mountains had lifted their heads high enough 
to meet the gaze of any eye in Europe — while yet this hemi- 
sphere slept unknown between the oceans of the West — one of 
Italia's sons, the grandest man of his race, touched with the 
highest inspiration, pointed his frail ship into the vast un- 
known, and, in the very sublimity of hope, defying peril and 
fear and mutiny, still kept on, and on, and on, till faith was 
rewarded by fruition, and the world was doubled by his will. 
And so it happens, even though Vespucius should divide the 
honors with him, that we are indebted to Italy for the very 
continent on which we live. And when, long years there- 
after, a people had arisen in this new land, broken their yoke 



LIBERTY. ig 

and conquered their freedom, another of the sons of Italy came 
to write the story of the American struggle and of American 
independence ; so that this historic page might ever blaze in 
the face of oppression, and become a beacon and a joy to 
his own land, when, in God's providence, the time should 
come to assert its title to be free And now that time has 
come — is on them at this hour — how much quickened by that 
history we cannot tell — and we are here to-night to aid it 
with our gifts, and name it in our prayers. 

In all important national crises, there is always a right man 
for the right place. Affairs are not ripened for a revolution 
and then permitted to take care of themselves. Concurrently 
with the maturing process, a master spirit is prepared to 
guide the current of events. I believe, with Webster, that 
the Almighty has not made a world which he does not take 
the trouble to govern. He knows his own appointed time, 
and sees to it that the right material is provided, and often 
seasons it in fire and ashes, nurses it in tempest, and tosses 
it in storm, that it may be tough to endure the strain. 

The present throe of Italy is not an exception. Suddenly, 
as from the skies, descends upon her a man of the largest and 
noblest endowments and purest virtue, of matchless military 
skill ; of experience in every kind of combat, on sea or land ; 
of courage that never heard of fear, and generosity that knows 
no thought of self. One deep in whose soul was planted 
hatred of every form of despotism, and before whom burned 
ever the fire pillar guiding to his country's redemption. 
With a quick intuition it is seen that he is the chosen man, 
and to the returning exile the honors, the dangers and the 



20 LIBERTY. 

responsibilities of chieftainship are by common consent 
awarded. 

How wonderfully he had been prepared for this great duty ! 
What strange destiny placed him in youth for some act of 
patriotism under sentence of death, and drove him from his 
native land afar ? A more adventurous lot has rarely fallen 
to man. His career one scene of danger and combat, not 
for himself but for others. For him never any portion of the 
prize — the benefit of the suffering his sole compensation — 
too great to do aught but give, carrying his life in his hand, 
that it might be ready for the service of any fellow creature 
who might need it. One subject is ever present with him. 
He cannot escape it if he would. He would not escape it if 
he could. It nerves his arm, it fills his brain, it cheers the 
present and gilds the future — the hope of helping his beloved 
Italy. Whenever a countryman sinks by his side, his grief 
takes on a double woe, first, that he should have lost his 
friend, and next, that there would be one warrior the less, when 
the voice of the trumpet should be heard beyond the Alps. 
Whether on the keel-beaten waters of the Mediterranean, or 
the broader ocean ; whether on the floods of the La Plata, 
the Parana or the Uruguay ; or on the pampas solitudes of 
Brazil ; whether he drives his herds to the marts of Monte- 
video, or, flying home, wields his sword within the walls of 
Rome, or hurls his dauntless Zouaves upon the yielding 
armies of Austria ; wherever he is, the thought yet drives 
him on, that he is training himself to fight for the liberation 
of Italy, and his eye is always open to catch the first tokens 
of the dawning day. 



LIBERTY. 21 

How often as he sat at the gates of our own entry to the 
sea, covered with the emblems of his greasy toil, would he 
lay his ear close to the beating of old ocean's vital heart, as 
she heaved in her full-blown ships, and counsel them still of 
Italy. He had the same faith that the hour would come as 
Columbus had that a world would rise out of the Western 
main — and the hour did come. The eyes of Garibaldi be- 
held it. Instantly he enters on the mission for which his pre- 
vious life had so well prepared him. The people flock to his 
standard. The Bourbon tyrant packs up his crown jewels 
and flies — the royal purple retreats before the red flannel 
shirt. From island to mainland the conqueror goes; the 
deep and rusty bolted dungeons, holding the very chivalry of 
Italy, open before him, and forth come the emaciated suffer- 
ers to light, and life, and liberty; the enthusiasm of the peo- 
ple flames up like the long-pent forces of their own Vesuvius ; 
and so he pushed on his triumph, till he carries his ensigns 
up from the toe of the peninsula to the very borders of the 
Pontine marshes, till he rescues the kingdom of the Two Sici- 
lies; and then this cattle drover, this candle maker, this hero 
of two continents, having seized the baton of absolute empire, 
voluntarily resigns it to a constitutional, though excommuni- 
cated sovereign, unites nine millions of men in a common 
confederacy, reunites the scattered fragments after their long 
and disastrous — shall I speak the word — secession, and like 
another Cincinnatus — like another Washington — bears only 
laurels, and recorded honors, and a nation's gratitude to his 
sea-surrounded home. 

There is he now — the lion in repose — almost the first re- 



22 LIBERTY. 

pose and safety his life has known. Only a few such men 
are stationed along the coasts of time. We may glance down 
whole centuries of history in vain to find them ; and never, 
with her full scroll unrolled, can we find an instance of 
higher and holier patriotism. 

But much remains to be done. Italy, the " captured night- 
ingale," still beats her wings and wails her melancholy plaint 
that she is not wholly free. The seven hills that girt the 
Niobe of the world are still in despotic grasp, and the per- 
fidious Hapsburg, with his mailed legions and his yellow- 
black flag, hangs on the northern borders of the Adriatic. 
But this will not continue. The imperial city, rich with the 
recollections of five and twenty centuries, is, in the prophetic 
language of Count Cavour, " destined to become the splendid 
capital of the Italian kingdom." Rome has not " lost the 
breed of noble bloods." 

Be sure, the exploits of the hero-patriot are not finished. 
May we not join in his labor, and catch some radiance of his 
glory, by sending him cheer and sinew from his adopted re- 
public ? The nations in their hour of sorrow are not unac- 
customed to look to us, not only for refuge, but for help. So 
did the rising Greek — and responsive ships, charged with 
American aid, ploughed the Ionian Sea. So did the strug- 
gling Pole — and American arms were wielded in the land of 
Kosciusko. Famine-stricken Ireland beheld the mustering 
of American beneficence. Here, also, resounded the strangely 
eloquent voice of the sad-eyed Hungarian; may his heart's 
wish yet be granted ! And now, at this very hour, when we 
are not without portentous perturbations of our own, there is 



LIBERTY. 



23 



turned towards us the wistful gaze of starving thousands on 
our own Western skirts — of starving thousands of Christian 
men and women in distant Syria, beyond the ranges of Leb- 
anon — and of unenfranchised millions in Italy. 

When our newborn empire was fighting for its very exist- 
ence, we had sympathizing friends abroad, and arms and 
money and men traversed the ocean to our aid. But for this 
we might now have been dragging along the chain of colo- 
nial dependence. In responding to this call we are not, there- 
fore, exercising generosity, but repaying a debt of gratitude. 
One of our citizens, prompt at the summons, devotes thous- 
ands to the cause. This, as I know, is not a tenth part of 
what he has already poured into the patriot treasury. 

From his little farm in Caprera, back over the dim waters 
he so lately crossed, Garibaldi stretches his hand to us to- 
night. Let us listen to his wishes. Long live Garibaldi and 
his majestic example ! Long live the noble hosts who gather 
at his side ! Soon crash the tottering and cruel despotism 
of Austria ! Soon open wide the gates of independence to 
the whole of Italy ! Come on, oh weary and waiting Hun- 
gary, to thy place among the nations. Forever and forever 
sweep on the march of freedom, the happiness of the broad 
world, and the kingdom of our God. 



V. 

The immediate results of this Cooper Institute 
gathering were not limited to the generous sum 



24 LIBERTY. 

•of money contributed on the spot to the cause at 
stake ; nor to the reports of the proceedings, which 
were read by the American people the next morn- 
ing in every part of the country, exciting a deeper 
and more intelligent sympathy with Italian Inde- 
pendence ; but the event set the pulses of the civ- 
ilized world to quicker beatings. The responses 
which came back from Italy were as fervid as her 
ancient patriotic fires, and like responses were re- 
turned from the friends of Liberty in distant na- 
tions. It seemed as though the shouts of Cooper 
Hall had, like the morning drum-beat of England, 
gone round the globe. It was not alone a natural 
and instinctive expression of American feeling ; but 
it heightened and sanctified the holiest and tender- 
est souvenirs which bind the hearts of nations and 
the links of centuries together. The honor of hav- 
ing led this movement in America was everywhere 
accorded to Anderson ; but it was most enthusias- 
tically given to him by the Italians, in whose 
hearts one more unfading name was forever en- 
shrined. 

vi. 

Although it may not come in strictly chronolog- 



LIBERTY. 



25 



ical order, this seems a fitting place to speak of 
some incidents which afterward occurred in Mr. 
Anderson's private life, which show the reward 
that often follows generous deeds, while the doer 
of them is still among the living. 

The illustrations now cited come from the two 
illustrious men who best knew Anderson's agency 
in helping Italy in her deepest need, and the grati- 
tude his unsought generosity inspired. The first is 
a private letter from Garibaldi, written from the 
field of Caserta, while the blood was still fresh on 
the red shirt of the invincible hero. 

VII. 

Caserta, Oct. 4, 18 5c. 

Mr. John Anderson, New York : 

I am informed that you have a letter of introduction to me 
from my friend General Avezzana, and I am sorry that cir- 
cumstances have prevented your coming- to join me, and al- 
lowing- me the pleasure of making your acquaintance ; for I 
know that you are a democrat and in favor of the Italian 
cause, for which I am fighting at this very moment, with the 
General by my side, whose fidelity to my cause on the 
victorious 1st of October, on the hill of St. Angelo, I deeply 
appreciate. 



2 6 LIBERTY. 

I shall feel greatly obliged by your expressing my sympa- 
thy for the American people, the grandeur of whose eleva- 
tion I admire, and which arose from the same revolutionary 
cause as that in which the Italians are now struggling for 
liberty. 

Accept my warmest expressions of esteem, and allow me 
the felicity of exchanging with you a hearty shake of the 
hand. Yours, G. GARIBALDI. 

VIII. 

The second, of the same date, contains a graphic 
description of the decisive battle which might not 
have been won without the help of the writer, who 
could not have shared in the glories of that day 
without the help of John Anderson, nor even with 
that help, had it come a few hours later. 

LETTER FROM GENERAL AVEZZANA. 

St. Angelo, Oct. 4, i860. 

Dear Friend : On the day after my arrival at Naples I 
called to pay a visit to my friend G. Garibaldi, who had his 
general quarters at Caserta. As soon as he saw me he gave 
me an embrace, and we met as two warm and affectionate 
brothers, while he exclaimed — "You are just come in 
time," and proposed to me on the instant the command of 
the right wing of the army, which was stationed at this point. 

I accepted it, of course, and started instantly to take the 



LIBERTY. 



2/ 



command of the division there stationed and to direct the 
operations, so that almost on the same morning on which I 
reached that position I had to exchange cannon and rifle ball 
with the enemy, till on the 1st of this month, at half past four 
o'clock A.M., the enemy resolutely took the offensive, and 
attacked my position with a force of not less than 25,000 
men, all well drilled. This was on the whole position, which 
covered an area of about five miles. But he weighed partic- 
ularly on the vulnerable point «on the right of my said posi- 
tion, which he attacked with a force of 10,000 men. I had 
on that spot to meet such a numerous host scarcely two 
thousand men. I immediately extended a part of the number 
eii tirailleur on the front, availing myself of all the undula- 
tion of the ground, trees, &c., and the remainder I brought 
in person to bear on their right flank, as also their front, as 
they were advancing ; and so I succeeded in checking in 
some manner their marches, and keeping free the main road 
of Santa Maria, by which General Garibaldi, who had not at 
that time arrived, could come into the field. We fought till 
five o'clock P.M. obstinately, losing and gaining ground alter- 
nately. At moments I believed myself lost, as some new 
troops entrusted with the defense of a barricade were panic 
struck and abandoned the position. But I always defended 
myself with the remainder of the forces, and never yielded, 
notwithstanding that the enemy was gaining ground consid- 
erably at every instant. It was just at this crisis that the val- 
orous General Garibaldi, with his immense prestige on the 
soldiery, succeeded in mustering some three hundred men of 
those who had given way, and charged the enemy desper- 



28 LIBERTY. 

ately at the point of the bayonet, upon which they took to 
precipitate flight, and we gained the day. But I must confess 
we paid dearly, as I alone lost about six hundred men in 
killed and wounded. 

The plan of the enemy was vast, and no less than with the 
view to surround us with 50,000 men and take us all prison- 
ers. But it turned quite the contrary. He attacked simul- 
taneously with my position those of Santa Maria, Caserta and 
Madalloni, and in all these positions he was repulsed, besides 
leaving behind 7,000 prisoners and having as many more dis- 
banded and dispersed in the mountains, and losing a large 
number of pieces of artillery. 

It was a glorious day for my dear country, and one that 
will, I hope, seal its destiny. It was, too, glorious for me, 
that I was preserved to this day, after forty years of exile and 
martyrdom, and enabled to participate in the glory of such 
an immortal occasion, the Almighty so retributing my con- 
stant suffering by crowning the last days of my existence 
with an everlasting reward. 

I enclose, dear Anderson, a letter of the hero Garibaldi, to 
whom I spoke of you. He was sorry at not having had the 
pleasure of shaking hands with you. But I hope the next 
trip you make to this continent you will have that satisfaction. 

See if you can move what we spoke about in Liverpool, 
namely, a democratic movement, to provide funds for the 
cause of Italy. 

Remember me to your family and our friends, and believe 
me your warm and grateful friend, 

Gen. TOSEPH AVEZZANA. 



TRAVEL. 



I. 



Ten years after these memorable events had 
passed into history, and the grass had grown green 
over the always decorated graves of the heroes of 
Caserta, Mr. Anderson again went to Europe ; this 
time accompanied by his wife, Kate, who was to 
be the participant of his honors, the presiding ge- 
nius of his palace home, the dispenser of his chari- 
ties, and the solace of the rest of his life. 

It was in the autumn of 1870, and he felt that 
he could now conscientiously put the cares and 
worries of commerce behind him, and devote the 
afternoon and evening of life to the gratification 
of those tastes and proclivities from whose indul- 
gence he had in a great measure been debarred by 
the more urgent claims of business. He now 
contemplated a somewhat prolonged residence 

abroad. 

29 



, TRA VEL. 



II. 



Arriving in London at what is justly called the 
suicidal month of November, he was taken with a 
severe attack of bronchitis, which, but for good 
nursing, would certainly have terminated fatally. 
His physicians at once ordered him to the Conti- 
nent, the South of France, or Italy, being preferred. 
But as this was in the midst of the Franco-Prussian 
war, to pass through the south or middle of Europe 
was impossible, therefore he was compelled to take 
the extreme northern journey through Brenner Pass 
over the mountains. San Remo was strongly rec- 
ommended by travelers and friends, and he and 
his party arrived there in the evening, when it pre- 
sented a very beautiful appearance as approached 
by the celebrated Cornici road. It has some seven- 
teen thousand inhabitants, and is located due north 
and south, divided into two parts by the San 
Bronto Torrent. That on the east is built like a 
pyramid by the side of a small hill. San Remo is 
in all respects one of the most interesting spots on 
the Riviera. It was built, like most places along 
the coast, with a view of defense against the 



TEA VEL. 



31 



incursions of the Mediterranean pirates. Its ori- 
gin is supposed to date from the year 300 A.D., 
but many think at a much earlier period. It is 
made up of a most curious and picturesque entan- 
glement of narrow streets and vaulted passages, 
under massive arches. This plan was so chosen 
that in case of a siege, if one quarter were lost, the 
other might hold out. Our traveler took strange 
delight in wandering amongst its quaint old streets, 
and viewing the picturesque dress of its people. 
They reminded him of the terror formerly inspired 
by the Saracens. There are several families who 
are to this day commonly called Gli ScJiiavi (the 
slaves), in remembrance of their forefathers having 
been enslaved to the Saracens. 



in. 

After a week at a hotel he engaged the charming 
villa Quallio, owned by a Piedmontese gentleman. 
Here he remained for four delightful months, stead- 
ily gaining in health. There are pleasant drives 
around San Remo, especially to a small town called 
Bortagara, which is celebrated as being the place 
where the palms used in the Pontifical States on 



32 



TRA VEL. 



Palm Sunday, are grown. They obtained the ex- 
clusive right in the following manner: Being about 
to place a statue of some saint on its pedestal in 
one of the public squares of Rome, the Pope, car- 
dinals and priests, with thousands of citizens, were 
out to witness the sight. The Pope had given 
orders that any person who should speak above his 
breath during the erection of the statue should be 
seized on the spot and taken to prison. Just as 
the workmen had got the figure suspended in mid- 
air, the ropes began to slacken, and in another mo- 
ment the beautiful statue, the work of years, would 
have been dashed to pieces, had ^ not a voice 
screamed "Wet the ropes!" The workmen, not 
knowing from whom the order came, instantly 
obeyed, and lo ! the statue rested on its base. But 
whence had the order come ? who spoke ? In the 
crowd there was the master of a small vessel that 
ran between Bortagara and Civita Vecchia. He 
had seen at a glance the only way to save it, and 
gave the order, for which he had to remain in prison 
a day and night. The next day, however, the Pope 
sent for him, and after having heard his story, 
granted him and his heirs forever the privilege of 
furnishing the palms used in the States of the 



TRA VEL. 



33 



Church on Palm Sunday, which brings his heirs 
even at the present time quite a nice income. 

IV. 

In a letter to a friend Mr. Anderson gave the 
following account of a storm he saw while at San 
Eemo : 

" I witnessed a strange sight here awhile ago. A 
storm had been brewing for several days, and on the 
morning of the fourth it burst in all its fury on the 
town. In the harbor were five or six vessels belonging 
to the place. At three o'clock in the afternoon, see- 
ing an unusual number of persons gathered on the 
quay, on went my hat and coat, and out I went in 
all the storm : and well was I repaid for my 
trouble, for never did I witness anything so strange 
and weird-like. There were no less than a thousand 
persons on the Mole at the time, among them some 
thirty priests in their robes and gowns, each carry- 
ing flambeaux in their hands three feet in height. 
The Bishop carried the Host, or Bon Dieu as they 
called it, and elevated it several times in the direc- 
tion of the vessels, which by this time had flags of 
distress flying from their masts, but could receive 



34 



TRA VEL. 



no human aid, for no boat could live for one mo- 
ment in that surf. All this time the people on 
shore were chanting some dirge in their peculiar, 
doleful style, which is heard only among the Ital- 
ian peasants. One of the priests now threw bread 
on the water, after which they all marched in pro- 
cession to a small church near by, where they 
remained for some time in prayer. They again 
formed in procession after leaving the church, and 
marched with lighted flambeaux to the sanctuary 
on the hill. They returned about eight o'clock in 
the evening; by this time the wind had fallen, and 
notwithstanding that five of the vessels went ashore, 
not one person was lost. On the third day after 
the storm the Mayor of the city, accompanied by 
the captain of one of the wrecked vessels, and the 
only one not insured, called upon me with a sub- 
scription paper; the owner was very poor, and had 
lost everything. I gave him a few hundred francs. 
Next day all the newspapers along the Riviera had 
an article headed, 'A Generous American,' and 
stating what I had given the captain. That was 
enough — for thirty miles the beggars flocked to see 
the 'generous American.' I could not leave our 
house for a walk without being followed by scores 



TRA VEL. 



35 



of them, which became such an annoyance that I 
concluded to leave the place, which I did in a 
few days." 

V. 

At last the traveler turned his face towards Flor- 
ence to seek his old friend, General Avezzana, who 
was reposing from his battles in the Parliament of 
the nation he had done so much to save. The 
General, and his daughter, Katie, greeted the An- 
dersons with all the ardor of Italian friendship, and 
immediate preparations were made for a visit to 
Garibaldi at his Island home. 

Mr. Anderson chartered the steamship Elba, and 
invited a party of American and Italian friends to 
join him in this holy pilgrimage. The company 
consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, General Avez- 
zana and daughter, General Tyler, the oldest Gen- 
eral in the American army at the time, General 
Butler, American Consul Howard of Leghorn, 
Caesare Pastacaldi, and a few other Italians. The 
Leghorn journals got hold of the news, and con- 
nected it with some political movement ; conse- 
quently on reaching the quay they found hundreds 
of citizens waiting to see them off. 



& 



TRA VEL. 



VI. 



They had a delightful passage of eighteen hours, 
going quite close to the Islands of Elba and Cor- 
sica. The former looked beautiful, under the bright 
moon, and they gazed long and thoughtfully on the 
scenes where the caged lion had chafed. At mid- 
night they passed Corsica, the home of the Bona- 
partes. Between nine and ten the next morning 
they dropped anchor in the Straits of Bonifacio, 
near the Island of Maddelina. Caprera lay just in 
front with Maddelina to the north. As soon as they 
cast anchor three boats from Maddelina came along- 
side, to take them to Caprera, the water being too 
shallow to allow a nearer approach of the vessel to 
the Island. The American flag floated over the 
first boat, closely followed by the rest. They soon 
began to discern objects on the Island. First, the 
Garibaldi house, and next a group of persons stand- 
ing on a rock not far from the landing. On a nearer 
view they recognized the General himself, as the 
central figure, resting on his crutches, and sur- 
rounded by his staff officers. 



TEA VEL. 



VII. 



It was indeed a most picturesque sight, and one 
that would not soon be forgotten by the visitors. 
The General had on the costume made so familiar by 
his pictures — the red shirt, and black neckhandker- 
chief tied in a sailor's knot, and hanging down his 
back, wide gray pants, and a peculiar over-garment 
of cloth, something like a Roman toga. He wore 
a small round cap embroidered with gold, and tak- 
ing him just as he appeared then, one would say he 
was a man of fifty-five, with light brown hair, and 
small brown eyes, having, as his pictures all show, 
something of a lion face, much more striking than 
in his pictures. His manners are very courteous, 
and full of dignity. Avezzana approached the 
General, and after embracing each other like two 
long parted brothers, Avezzana presented such of 
the party as had not the pleasure of a previous ac- 
quaintance. Garibaldi, putting his arm through 
Mr. Anderson's on the one side, and Avezzana's on 
the other, took the lead and proceeded to the house, 
as if anxious to welcome the party himself. The 
house was as unpretentious as its master ; good 



38 TRAVEL. 

fellowship everywhere without ostentation ; just 
such a home as one might expect to find, who knew 
anything about the master. The edifice is built of 
stone and rubble, like most Italian houses of the 
present day — two stories high, with a hall in the 
middle, and rooms on either side. The General 
ushered his guests into the parlor, where they re- 
mained a short time conversing with him. Just as 
dinner was announced the host led in his wife and 
little daughter. This lady is his third wife, a na- 
tive of Turin, and much younger than himself, and 
entirely devoted to him. After they were all seated, 
the General remarked that everything on the table 
was the production of the Island — wines, fruit, flow- 
ers, vegetables, and meats. One of the savory 
dishes of the abundant repast was part of a wild 
goat which the General himself had shot the day 
before not far from his own door. At the table, 
where they say one's breeding is most conspicuous, 
the General showed to great advantage. He is 
most courteous in manner. Several speeches w r ere 
made by his American and Italian friends. He 
thanked them in his best English for visiting him, 
especially on his birthday, St. Joseph's day; and 
said, " I honor St. Joseph, because he was the hus- 



TRA VEL. 



39 



band of Mary, the mother of our Saviour, and then 
again I hate Joseph, because the priests make a saint 
of him : our Dante was a better man than Joseph, 
because he sent the Pope to hell." No one, Catholic 
or Protestant, at the table, took offence ; they all 
well understood the General. 

VIII. 

After dinner he invited the party to take a walk 
over the Island ; they sauntered leisurely along, no 
one wishing to get far from the sound of the Gen- 
eral's voice. He led them to a grove of orange 
trees-, which he called his mandarine oranges, the 
trees being only two to three feet high, and the 
fruit not much larger than birds' eggs. They had 
to be protected on all sides from the wind by mat- 
ting. In the midst of the grove ran a crystal stream 
which flowed into the sea. The Island does not 
look at a distance so productive as it is, for rocks 
are scattered all over it and give it rather a sterile 
look. It is fifteen miles in length by twelve in 
width. The General is its sole owner. Wild goats 
are very numerous on it, and it properly takes from 
them its name, Caprera. On the return of the com- 



40 



TRA VEL. 



pany to the house, they passed the tomb of the 
General's little daughter, whom he had lost a year 
before. It is very pretty, simple, and in perfect 
harmony with its surroundings. It was sent from 
Turin to the General by some of his friends. Close 
by it was another tomb, somewhat similar, bearing 
the name of Garibaldi, inside of which stood a small 
urn; as the General caught some inquiring eyes, 
he touched it, the urn, gently with his crutch, and 
said, " This is for my ashes." 

"Then you believe in cremation?" somebody 
said. ' 

" Oh, yes ;. don't you?" said he. " It is best." 

No one made a reply, and they all passed on. As 
they neared the house he pointed out what all pro- 
nounced to be the largest and finest fig tree they 
had seen in all Italy. 

As the shades of evening now began to fall, the 
Captain of the Elba politely reminded the com- 
pany that if they wished to get out of the Straits 
that night, they must get on board at once. So, 
bidding their generous host and hostess a tender 
and reverent farewell, they were soon in the boats 
that were waiting to take them on board the steam- 
er, the General and his officers accompanying them 



TRA VEL. 



41 



to the quay. The last thing they saw on Caprera 
was the General waving them a parting salute. The 
party had scarcely touched the steamer before she 
got under way, and after a most agreeable passage 
of twenty hours, found themselves once more at 
Leghorn. 

IX. 

THEN ON TO ROME. 



" city of the soul ! 

Lone mother of dead empires ! " 

It was no small thing for the American Ander- 
son to walk those streets by the side of the Roman 
Avezzana, who had not for long years ventured to 
show himself in the Eternal City, where, on its 
gates, and .even on the walls of the Coliseum, had 
been placarded a reward for his head. John An- 
derson had loved Roman history ; from his boy- 
hood he had been as familiar with its great events 
as he was with his primer, and he seemed to derive 
more enjoyment in wandering over that haunted 
ground than in any other part of the world. By 
no means a Latin scholar, " Caesar's Commenta- 
ries " was one of his home books. 



42 TRA VEL. 

X. 

Being now fully restored to health, and the sea- 
son having advanced to the beautiful month of 
June, he no longer feared to return to England, 
and so we find him once more in London, where, 
after a brief stay, he crossed over to Dublin, and 
amongst the Wicklow Mountains engaged a beau- 
tiful villa, owned by Mrs. Blackwood Hamilton, and 
called Heman Lodge. His friends often heard him 
say that, " the four months passed amongst the 
Wicklow Mountains were the most enjoyable of 
all his life." 

In the early part of September we next find him 
at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, nicely established at the 
Beachland House, which was taken for the season. 

The scenery of the Isle of Wight is unsurpassed 
in grandeur and beauty by anything in the British 
Isles. The artists have grown tired in painting it, 
and the poets in singing its praise. Mr. Anderson, 
who was a close observer of men and things, once 
said to a friend, after conversing with a peasant : 

"Don't you notice a similarity between the 
peasants of the Isle of Wight and the natives of 
the New England States?" 



TRA VEL. 43 

The response was, " Yes ; how do you account 
for it ? " 

"Simply," he said, "because the Pilgrims came 
from near the Isle of Wight, and as the peo- 
ple here have been so long isolated, they have re- 
tained their primitive looks and habits, which, I 
think, accounts for the similarity." 



XI. 



Business letters from home at last began to press 
heavily upon him, and invade his quiet and happy 
life. Always restless and anxious when he thought 
duty called him, he now seemed to lose much of 
that placid enjoyment which had heretofore marked 
his stay on the Island, and Mrs. Anderson, notic- 
ing this, and understanding his nature so well, 
thought it best to encourage him to return home, 
which he did the following March. 

After settling important matters, he retired to 
his Tarrytown estate, which he had not occupied 
for some ten years ; and in the quiet, unpretentious 
little cottage, still standing in the midst of a lovely 
lawn which it had taken years to create, he gave 
himself up to repose and culture. 



44 



TRA VEL. 



XII. 



Mr. Anderson had a keen sense of the ludicrous, 
and a humorous speech was never lost on him. The 
Irish peasant was often a subject for his diversion, 
particularly Mrs. Blackwood Hamilton's gardener, 
Michael, who was a fixture on the place. One day, 
Mr. Anderson and Michael were conversing to- 
gether in front of the lodge that led to the house, 
when a poor woman, with a basket on her arm, 
approached him ; making a low courtesy, she said : 

" Yer honor ! I've got somethin' here that I know 
will plaize Mrs. Anderson very much, as I hear she 
is very fond of mushrooms." 

" Yes," was the reply, " she is, my good woman ; 
have you any? " 

" That I have, yer honor ; an' the fairest that 
iver ye set yer good-looking eyes on ; and here 
they are ; " at the same time taking the lid off the 
basket. 

"They are, indeed," said Mr. Anderson, "very 
fine ; where did you get them?" 

" Not far from here, yer honor," said the woman, 
pointing over her shoulder in the direction of a 



TRA VEL. 



45 



field visible in the distance. This was Michael's 
opportunity to speak, and forward he came, scratch- 
ing his head. 

" Wuz it in Lord Plunkett's faild by the fairy 
fort, ye got thim?" inquired Michael. • 

She gave him a hard look, and said : 

" An' if it wuz, what bizness is that of yours, 
Misther Michael Fogarty?" 

" I'd hev ye to understand that it is, as I don't 
wish the masther and misthress to be pizened wid 
yer fairy mushrooms," said Michael, getting very 
angry ; an' they'll niver pass into the kitchen except 
over me dead body. An' now, the best thing ye 
can do is to tak yer basket an' be off, before I 
git enny more angry than I am at prisent." 

Mr. Anderson, with his usual tenderness of heart, 
saw that the woman was much disappointed at not 
having made her sale. 

" There, my good woman, is half a crown for 
you. Take your mushrooms, and sell them to whom 
you please." She courtesied low, and after thank- 
ing him many times, wishing him long life, etc., 
Michael had the pleasure of seeing her depart by 
the lodge. 

" Now, Michael," said Mr. Anderson, after she 



46 TRA VEL. 

had left the gate, "what is the meaning of all this? 
Do tell us what was the matter with the mushrooms 
that we couldn't have them, for I myself, as well 
as Mrs. Anderson, am very fond of them." 

Michael-seemed embarrassed at first, but finally 
said : 

" Well, yer honor, ye know that Ireland is full of 
stories. Ye hev yer books, and yer histhries, an' we 
hev our thraditions ; an' one of thim, yer honor, 
is, that Ireland havin' bin wunct a holy isle, full of 
larnin' an' religion, is the only spot upon the 'arth 
where the good people, the fairies, still linger. An' 
now, yer honor, if ye will just cast yer eye over to 
that faild 'yonder, I will show yer what I mane 
about the fairy fort that I axed her about." 

The listener looked in the direction indicated, 
and saw a ditch encircling about a quarter of an acre 
of land, the sides entangled with briers and bramble, 
as though it had not been touched in a hundred 
years. 

"There, yer honor," said Michael, "that is the 
fairy fort, and though it is full of blackberries and 
mushrooms, sum of thim that that ould woman 
bro't here, becase ye were furriners, an' didn't know 
no betther, not an Irishman or woman in all Ireland 



TRA VEL. 



47 



wud dare touch one. I'll go bail she'll never dare 
bring any more to yer honor." 

" Well, Michael," willing to humor him, " did 
you ever see any of the fairies yourself?" 

" Well, yer honor, I will tell ye what occurred 
here about thirty years ago whin I was a sthrip of 
a lad : An Englishman, be the name of Taylor, 
came to Wicklow an' bought up a power of land ; 
amongst the rist this faild that now belongs to 
Lord Plunkett. In looking over the grounds wan 
day with his overseer, he spied that nice pace of 
ground over there, the fairy fort. 

" 'An' why haven't ye bin cultivatin' it,' sez he. 
1 Well,' sez the overseer, who be the way was an 
Irishman himself ; ' that,' sez he, ' is a fairy fort, 
and we Irishmen niver touch it. We have a respict 
for the people that occupied it long before any 
Englisman touched the soil.' ' Tut, tut,' sez Misther 
Taylor, ' I'll have no such nonsense. Ye must be 
mad to lave sich a vallible pace of land lyin' idle. 
No, no, man ; we must make some use of it ; ' at the 
same time strikin' his cane in the earth, he turned 
up what appeared to be a fine quality of sand. 
1 Ah,' sez he, ' I perceive here is a foine sandbank ; 
which is the very thing I want. Get a half dozen 



4 8 



TEA VEL. 



carts and min an' set thim to work to-morrow 
mornin',' sez he, 'an' bring the sand around to 
where we are puttin' up our building.' Well, the 
man was reluctant to do it, but he was obliged to 
do his biddin' ; so next mornin' the horses and 
min was on the spot, an' to wurruk they wint. Well, 
yer honor, it was the foinest day that iver blew out 
of the hivens whin they comminced, an' before the 
carts wer naff full there came a whirlwind, and the 
nixt thing that was seen was the horses an' carts, 
wid the min an' the sand, whirlin' away in trie air, 
an' from that day to this not a mortal man of thim 
was iver seen." 

" Very strange, indeed, Michael," said Mr. An- 
derson, restraining his mirth. " But you have been 
here some time yourself — did you ever see any- 
thing ?" 

" Wirra, no, yer honor. I niver saw anything. 
The nearest I ever cam' to it was whin Mrs. Black- 
wood Hamilton wonct axed me to go and get her 
some rabbit-sand, be Lord Plunkett's lave, out of the 
bank yonder. Well, yer honor, I took the barrow, 
be her ladyship's command, an' I wint an' com- 
minced to shovel in the rabbit-sand, whin all at 
wonct I bethawt me of the min that the fairies took 



TRAVEL. ■ 49 

in the carts, an' begorra back I wint to her lady- 
ship as fast as I could thravel, an' tould her that if 
she rilled the barrow wid goold for me, I wouldn't 
touch it." 

" And so her ladyship had to do without the 
sand?" 

"No," said Michael, scratching his head still 
harder, and getting very red in the face, "for the 
young ladies thimselves went after it." 

" And they got the sand, and nothing happened 
to them, I suppose ?" said Mr. Anderson. 

" Wirra they did," replied Michael, turning his 
back, and walking off, leaving the American to 
laugh heartily over the story, but no more con- 
vinced about the fairies and their fort than before 
Michael had told him. 



SCIENCE. 

I. 

" But those dolce far niente days were now over 
for the present, and Kate and I had to say good-by 
to the Wicklow mountains, for I had to go to work 
and build a home which I had already too long 
neglected." These were the first words of the 
Traveler as he grasped the hand of an old friend 
who hastened to greet him on his return. 

Three days later, while the snow was yet on the 
ground, he began to settle on a site for the con- 
templated villa. No one better than himself knew 
the beautiful spots, for he had almost created them 
himself. He had taken the place a wild farm, part 
of it almost a jungle, and having spent sixty thou- 
sand dollars on labor, with his own artistic eye he 
had completed one of the most naturally lovely 
landscapes in America. The site selected for the 
villa was not considered by many, the most beauti- 
ful point. But he had his own views on this sub- 
50 



SCIENCE. 5 1 

ject, and wished for convenience, to place it not far 
from the great road which skirts the eastern bound- 
ary of the estate, and dominates the magnificent 
scenery of the Hudson Highlands. When it was 
finished, some years afterward, and Mrs. General 
Fremont in looking through it noticed with admira- 
tion a very beautiful mantel-piece of jasper onyx 
he had brought from London after it had taken 
the prize in three different countries of Europe, 
that lady facetiously remarked that the proprietor 
must have built the house to put the mantel-piece 
in. But no ! Lively as was his appreciation of 
everything truly beautiful in art — and he displayed 
this quality in a high degree — yet he was building 
a house in which he intended to pass the rest of 
his life, and amidst scenes where he had spent so 
much time, on grounds which by his taste and 
culture he had rendered so lovely. 



II. 



During the years he was engaged in building his 
villa and beautifying its surroundings, he made his 
cheerful home in a tiny cottage not far from the 
site of the stately edifice which was slowly rising 



52 



SCIENCE. 



on the lawn. And yet that unpretending spot was 
sanctified by one deed which will make it live longer 
in the memories of the friends of science than the 
proudest arch of triumph dedicated to a conqueror. 

Little did the postman of North Tarrytown-on- 
the-Hudson know how much he was doing on the 
morning of the 13th of March, 1873, when he rang 
the bell and threw into the doorway of a tiny cot- 
tage the New York papers of that morning, and 
hurried away to complete his rounds. Many a 
cathedral has rung out its glorious chimes over a 
great capitol on some festival day without awaken- 
ing such glad responses from listening spirits as 
were stirred by the tinkling notes of that country 
cottage bell. 

The eye of its master glanced over the follow- 
ing paragraph from Boston : " To-day Professor 
Agassiz addressed the Massachusetts Legislature 
on their visit to the Museum of Comparative Zo- 
ology at Cambridge, and asked for aid for a 
Summer School at the seaside for the instruction 
of teachers in Natural History." He asked in 
vain. The State, which boasts an Athens for its 
capital, " cared little for preserved toads," as one 
of its Athenian legislators said. 



SCIENCE. 5 3 

A flush came over the reader's face, and in a 
moment of generous inspiration he exclaimed : 
" Is it possible that the people of Massachusetts 
can turn a deaf ear to the appeals of a man who 
was the friend and enjoyed the confidence of 
Humboldt? who is, himself, at this day the very 
Nestor of Science, and who has devoted so many 
years of his life to the advancement of learning 
in that State? Well," he continued, as he looked 
into the swimming eyes of his lovely wife, whose 
sympathies blended so completely with those of 
her husband, " I know what we will do. We will 
give to Professor Agassiz, if he will accept it, our 
Island of Penikese with all attached to it, and, if 
necessary, funds to enable him to found his Sum- 
mer School, let Massachusetts do as it may." 

III. 

It was all settled on the very spot where the 
inspiration was born. A despatch brought the 
legal adviser and the man of affaires from New 
York, to arrange preliminaries, and that night the 
two were on the fast train for Boston. On the 
following day the strangers formally tendered the 



54 



SCIENCE. 



donation to Professor Agassiz. When the great 
savant heard the purpose of their mission, the 
thought seemed too grand to be taken in all at 
once. 

It was a coronation for the king of Modern 
Science, " and from an unpretending New Yorker, 
too!" 

The news was flashed under the oceans and over 
the continents to the friends of Science, and that 
night the name of JOHN ANDERSON was inscribed 
forever on the roll of honor of every University 
in the world, and the foundation laid for a school, 
bearing the name of the donor, which it was be- 
lieved was destined to take the front rank, and to 
receive the recognition of the most eminent 
scientific institutions on earth. It was one of the 
noblest offerings ever made to pure science, and it 
was most gracefully accepted by one who was rec- 
ognized as among the greatest of living scientists. 

It is unnecessary to trace the generous gift, sup- 
plemented as it was by a still more munificent 
endowment, through its intermediate stages. Suf- 
fice it to say, that in the early summer we find 
"The Anderson School of Natural History " estab- 
lished on the Island of Penikese, which had been 



SCIENCE. 5 5 

thus devoted to its uses, and the great Apostle of 
Science, surrounded by his disciples, diligently 
pursuing the studies contemplated in its founda- 
tion. 

IV. 

It can hardly be a matter of too much congrat- 
ulation that Natural Science hasThus at last be- 
gun to claim some share of the benefactions of the 
rich, and more prominence in the curriculum of 
liberal education. We do not decry classic learn- 
ing. Its chaste light will always illumine our path. 
Our universities will never fail to transmit the 
ancient torch from age to age. But hereafter the 
mind of this country will live more and more in 
the sunlight of Natural Science. The Classics 
are behind us with their benedictions. Science is 
beckoning us into the future with its vast possi- 
bilities. We go out to meet her in her shining 
robes. 

But for the straitness of our space, we should 
gladly speak of other munificent gifts, from Smith- 
son and Cooper, to Peabody and Sheffield, and the 
now rapidly swelling list of men who, although 



.ft SCIENCE. 

shut out by other absorbing pursuits from the 
penetralia of the Temple of Learning, still feel its 
value to the nation, and send their golden offerings 
to its altars. 

And how much better is it for them to do it, as 
Anderson and others have done, while they were yet 
in the vigor of a fine manhood, " while the eye is yet 
undimmed, and their natural force yet unabated ! " 

When the paralysis of death begins to relax the 
millionaire's grasp on his gold, and over his slowly 
glazing eyeballs the horrible truth flashes that, in 
buying the world, he has paid for it with his soul, 
what poor comfort for him then to give away what 
he can no longer keep ! This is not an American 
way of doing things. Our hero-workers are teach- 
ing the world better lessons. We are a nation of 
working men, marching over a continent of gold ; 
and Science is to receive such honors in this land 
as have never before been paid at her shrine by 
bankers, nobles, or kings. 



v. 

But some more specific statement seems to be 
desirable in honor of the Friend of Science, and of 



SCIENCE. 57 

its great Teacher. It may also serve as an inspi- 
ration, and perhaps, in some cases, a model for 
those who wish to act wisely in disposing of su- 
perfluous money — in the noble language of Smith- 
son, " in the dissemination of knowledge among 
mankind." 

In the Senate of Massachusetts, March 26, 1873, 
Mr. Loring, the president, after vacating the chair, 
for the first time in the session, to deliver an ad- 
dress in favor of an appropriation of $50,000, by 
the State, in aid of the Museum of Comparative 
Zoology of Cambridge University, in one of the 
most elaborate and convincing appeals on record, 
thus spoke of Mr. Anderson's gift. 



VI. 



In order that the Senate may thoroughly understand 
how truly the importance of the Museum, which we are 
asked to lift over the most trying period of its existence, is 
appreciated elsewhere, and what a place it holds in the affec- 
tions of thoughtful men throughout our land, I call your 
attention with great pleasure and pride to a generous prop- 
osition which has just been made by a citizen of another 
State, to help out the design of Professor Agassiz. His re- 
cent proposition to establish a school of natural history, as a 



53 



SCIENCE. 



branch of the Museum, on the Island of Nantucket, in which 
the services of the best teachers are to be employed, has 
been heard with great interest within these walls, and has 
attracted great attention in all parts of the country. Among 
those whose minds have been drawn towards the subject is 
John Anderson, Esq., an eminent merchant of New York, 
who has directed the following communication to be made 
to Professor Agassiz : 

"Mr. Anderson," the writer says, "has read with much 
interest the appeal recently addressed by you to the Legisla- 
ture of Massachusetts, and, although not possessing himself 
any intimate acquaintance with the department of science to 
which your distinguished talents have been so long and so 
successfully devoted, he sympathizes warmly in the project 
originated by you for making that department of science a 
branch of education. 

" Mr. Anderson is owner of an Island charmingly situated 
in Buzzard's Bay, in your State. It is known as Penikese, 
and is the most easterly of the three Western Islands of the 
Elizabeth group. It contains somewhere in the neighbor- 
hood of one hundred acres, of great fertility, and presents in 
every way a most attractive location for a summer residence. 
. . . It has occurred to Mr. Anderson, on reading your 
address, that this Island possesses advantages which would 
adapt it peculiarly to the objects contemplated by you. It 
has a beautiful little bay, near which the dwelling house and 
buildings have been erected. . . . There are several 
springs of very fine fresh water, and present accommodation, 
in the shape of buildings, for the party who may be expected 



SCIENCE. 



59 



to associate themselves with you during" the first season ; 
and this accommodation could of course be indefinitely in- 
creased. 

" Mr. Anderson is willing, and has authorized me in his 
name to offer to your institution, as a free gift, the entire fee 
simple of this Island, its buildings and improvements, to be 
perpetually used as a location for your proposed Naturalists' 
School, if, upon inquiry or a personal examination, you shall 
find it suitable for that purpose, or if your previous arrange- 
ments should not have precluded you from accepting it. 

" It would be a source of extreme gratification to Mr. An- 
derson to be so far instrumental in providing a habitation, if 
not a name, for an institution destined, it is to be hoped, in 
the future to disseminate throughout this great country that 
love of scientific investigation, the advantages of which you 
display in your own person so brilliant an example." 



VII. 

"In a subsequent communication, Mr. Anderson has in- 
formed Prof. Agassiz that he has appropriated fifty thou- 
sand dollars as a permanent fund for the school, in order 
that it may go into immediate operation. 

It is spontaneous gifts like this, sir, which indicate what 
a warm place there is in the human heart for great merit 
and great accomplishment, and which illustrate the fervor 
with which the human mind responds to self-sacrificing and 
heroic effort in the cause of education. The Legislature of 



60 SCIENCE. 

Massachusetts can well afford to establish and encourage 
institutions which make such a warm and effective appeal to 
the benevolent and philanthropic. I trust the day is far 
distant when we shall be deaf to their demands, or shall 
allow ourselves to be outdone in liberality by the citizens of 
other States. When Mr. Anderson endows an offshoot from 
the Museum of Comparative Zoology, he assumes that the 
parent institution is in the hands of a Commonwealth which 
will not allow it to languish. To pause now in the work at 
Cambridge, would discourage those who may hereafter turn 
a kind eye towards the business of education here. Let us 
remember that ' To him that hath shall be given,' and carry 
a warm heart and an open hand for our schools and col- 
leges." 

VIII. 

Professor Agassiz accepted the gift of the Island 
in the following letter : 

Cambridge, March 15, 1873. 

John Anderson, Esq. 

My dear Sir : — It seems to me impossible to do otherwise 
than accept the great gift you offer. It changes at once an 
experiment without fixed location or stable foundation into a 
permanent school for the study of nature, such as the world 
has not seen before. If I have a doubt in my mind, it is be- 
cause there may be practical difficulties in the way which I 
am personally unable to meet. I have long cherished the 
thought of a summer school like the one proposed, and I 



SCIENCE. fa 

have at various times in my life tried it with small classes, 
and for a few days or weeks at a time. The idea of establish- 
ing one at Nantucket, on a larger scale, was suggested by a 
young friend, Professor N. S. Shaler, who had a special taste 
and no little experience in this kind of teaching. Failure of 
health has obliged him to go abroad, and the care of organ- 
izing the whole scheme falls naturally into my hands. I had 
thought that the arranging a plan of summer instructions in 
natural history, founding courses of lectures to be given by 
myself and others, and being from time to time on the spot to 
see that all went well, would be quite within my strength, and 
that the minor questions, such as providing for the board and 
lodging of such persons as might come, would be easily ar- 
ranged in a town like Nantucket, and might indeed, be left 
in a great degree to themselves. 

At Penikese Island, however, we must live like a large 
family. A farmer and caterer would be a necessity. Ac- 
commodation must be provided within the precincts of the 
island itself for those who come ; and however simple the 
mode of life adopted, a well-ordered domestic economy will 
be required. The pupils who would resort to such an insti- 
tution have usually small means, and it would therefore be 
an essential condition of success that everything should be 
organized on the cheapest basis consistent with comfort. I 
have neither health, strength, nor time for more than the 
sreneral direction of the scientific work, and I am a little at 
a loss to know how the material part should be managed. 
However, even should we be obliged to limit the undertaking 
at first to such accommodations as the island now affords, I 



62 SCIENCE. 

think it would be far better than to begin it at Nantucket, or 
at any other place where we can have no certainty of carry- 
ing it on, summer after summer. Your noble endowment 
offers permanence and progress. In the interest of science, 
I gratefully accept it, and will do all Chat I can to found a 
school for naturalists, with which your name will always be 
associated, and which will introduce into our system of 
education the element it so much needs — a familiarity with 
nature. 

With great regard, yours, very truly, 

Ls. Agassiz. 



IX. 



A few days later Mr. Anderson, with character- 
istic liberality, met some of the practical difficul- 
ties of the organization by an endowment of fifty 
thousand dollars for the equipment and running 
expenses of the school. 

New York, March, 19, 1873. 

Professor Louis Agassiz, Director of Museum, Cam- 
bridge, Mass. 
My dear Sir : — I have received your letter of the 15th in- 
stant, announcing your acceptance of Penikese Island as a 
permanent location for the Summer School of Natural His- 
tory which it is your desire to found in connection with the 
Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge ; and I can 



SCIENCE. 63 

say with the utmost sincerity, that no act of my life has af- 
forded me so much gratification as to have given what you 
seem to consider a substantial foundation to an institution 
fraught with so much promise of intellectual improvement 
and general usefulness as that in contemplation. 

Business occupations commenced at a very early period of 
my life, and continued unceasingly and laboriously up to a 
date not yet remote, have prevented me in a great measure 
from acquiring in my own person many of the benefits which 
spring from an intimate acquaintance with that department 
of science of which you have been so conspicuous an orna- 
ment, and to which you have been for so long a time devoted, 
in the service of this country ; but no man appreciates more 
highly than I do the advantages to be derived from an ex- 
tension of general knowledge throughout this country, and 
especially a knowledge of that science which enables man- 
kind to utilize nature in almost every department of industrial 
economy. Most earnestly do I hope that this gift of Penikese 
may become, as you seem to believe it will, the basis of a 
permanent foundation, which, under your able direction, may 
be destined in future ages not only to afford the required in- 
struction to the youth of our own country, but may be the 
means of attracting to our shores numerous candidates from 
the Old World, who may find here, in the School about to be 
founded by you, those means of fitting themselves for the 
teaching of natural history from Nature herself, which, by a 
strange oversight, appear to have been overlooked in the 
schemes (generally so well conceived and executed) of educa- 
tion there. 



6 4 



SCIENCE. 



You refer in your letter to practical difficulties that present 
themselves in the way of the complete realization of your 
views, arising out of the pecuniary requirements which such an 
institution would necessarily involve. I have not overlooked 
this feature in the scheme, and I am prepared to tender my 
assistance in overcoming this difficulty. I will place at your 
disposal a sum of fifty thousand dollars, to be invested as the 
nucleus of a permanent endowment fund, so that the interest 
may be ever after available for the support and maintenance 
of the institution. This sum I will place in your hands at the 
same time with the delivery of the deed for the island, which 
deed shall be prepared and executed so soon as the settlement 
shall have been definitely arranged. 

I learn that you have expressed a wish to mark your ap- 
preciation of my gift of Penikese for the purpose of the insti- 
tution, by naming the latter after me. I feel necessarily 
deeply flattered by this offer, and can only say in reference 
to it that I leave that part of the question entirely in your 
hands, simply suggesting whether an institution, the initiation 
of which has been wholly the result of your own industry, 
and which must depend for success mainly on your own 
labors, should not more aptly receive its designation from a 
name which has become almost a household word wherever 
science is known and appreciated — that of Louis Agassiz. I 
shall be happy to execute a deed for the island in such a form 
as you may, on consideration, deem best calculated to give 
effect to your views for the future government of the institu- 
tion ; and I can only express an earnest hope that your efforts 
may be crowned with all the success they deserve, and that 



SCIENCE. 65 

you may have the satisfaction of bequeathing to posterity the 
benefits of an institution second to none of the kind in the 
world, and owing- its usefulness wholly to your disinterested 
services in the interests of science and of your adopted 
country. 

With great regard, yours, very truly, 

John Anderson. 



X. 



Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass., 
March 22, 1873. 

John Anderson, Esq. 

My dear Sir : — A hearing before the Committee on Edu- 
cation in the Massachusetts Legislature made it impossible 
for me to write by return mail yesterday in acknowledg- 
ment of your additional endowment of $50,000 to the Sum- 
mer School for Natural History. I am overwhelmed by 
your generosity. Such a gift, following so close upon the 
donation of an island admirably adapted by its position for 
the purposes of a practical school for natural history, opens 
visions before me such as I had never dared to indulge in 
connection with this plan. You do not know what it is sud- 
denly and unexpectedly to find a friend at your side full of 
sympathy, and offering substantial support to a scheme 
which you have been trying to carry out under difficulties 
and with very scanty means. I feel grateful to you for 
making the road so easy, and I believe you will have the 
permanent gratitude of scientific men here and elsewhere, 



66 SCIENCE. 

for I have the utmost confidence that this Summer School 
will give valuable opportunities for original investigations as 
well as for instruction. As to its name, I hope you will 
allow the School to be named for you. I thank you for the 
thought of making me the godfather ; but my name it can- 
not bear with any propriety. I am but one of many scien- 
tific men who have already offered their services to it for the 
ensuing summer, some of whom I have no doubt will con- 
tinue to work for it in future, and all of whom will be 
equally indebted to you for the advantages it offers. To 
name it after you is therefore the simple and appropriate 
way of settling the question, and I hope you will consider it 
as a natural expression of the gratitude which all connected 
with the School, either as teachers or pupils, must feel to- 
ward you. 

As to the mode of drawing up the settlements, I think it 
advisable not to connect the endowment with any State or 
university organization, but to allow the School the greatest 
independence and freedom of development. I should, how- 
ever, wish it to be associated with the Museum of Compara- 
tive Zoology in such a way as to share at once and forever 
in any advantages to be derived from an institution so kin- 
dred in its objects and aims. These two establishments for 
the study of natural history will, at least for the present, and 
probably always, be under the same general direction, and 
can work together to the greatest advantage of both. In- 
deed, I foresee that the most direct cooperation may exist 
between them, and I should wish that the terms of any set- 
tlement about the landed property and the income should 



SCIENCE. 



6 7 



not limit the working of the School to the summer months 
only, but include the idea of continuing its operations in 
connection with the Museum in Cambridge during the whole 
year. We have rich and extensive collections which may be 
made of infinite service to the School we are about to estab- 
lish. Indeed, when I first thought of it, it was as a summer 
session of our Museum work. I am somewhat in doubt as 
to the nature of the board or faculty to which the care of 
your generous endowment should be intrusted, and about 

the formation of which Mr. has consulted me. Any 

action on your part which would accelerate proceedings 
would be gratifying to me, even if it should require readjust- 
ment after more mature consideration, since it is important 
to proceed at once to the preparation of laboratories, appar- 
atus, etc. I am very anxious to relinquish all arrangements 
made with reference to Nantucket, and to open the School 
at once where it is to have its permanent home. Indeed, I 
am now employing every moment I can spare in making 
sketches for laboratories on the most simple and inexpensive 
plan possible, and for other necessary arrangements. I shall 
hope to be often on the ground myself, and to have you as a 
neighbor and adviser. It will, however, not be possible for 
me to pass the whole summer at Penikese Island, but I shall 
be there as frequently and for as long intervals as is consis- 
tent with my other work and with my family arrangements. 

With great respect, 

Yours respectfully, 

Ls. Agassiz. 



68 SCIENCE 



XL 



In the following letter to a friend of the founder, 
the Professor wrote on the same date, expressing 
his hopes concerning the influence of the School 
in the future. 

Dear Sir : — I would not do justice to Mr. Anderson did 
I only say that his munificence is princely ; it is so far-reach- 
ing that the coming generations only will fully appreciate 
the influence it is likely to have upon the civilization of the 
United States. I am extremely anxious to begin without loss 
of time, and to have the initiative steps so well pondered that 
our work shall be steadily onward. Whatever is now done 
should be so done that we may add and need never undo. I 
have therefore made up my mind to give up altogether the 
idea of going to Nantucket, even for a single season, but to 
begin at once at Penikese Island. I have already made 
several sketches for laboratories and domitories. As to 
laboratories we cannot imitate what has already been done 
elsewhere ; as we are to start a new organization our meth- 
ods must also be new. I think it would be unwise to limit 
our plans to the amount of means likely to be -raised at once. 
It will be much better to proceed with the whole plan before 
us, limiting our structures of course to the extent of our 
means, and then going on with their execution as our means 



SCIENCE. 69 

are increased. This would give at once symmetry and co- 
herence to the whole. 

Very truly yours, 

Ls. Agassiz. 



XII. 

On the 8th of the following July the " sea-girt 
Isle" of Penikese witnessed the opening of the 
Anderson School of Natural History by Professor 
Agassiz, under circumstances so auspicious that the 
least superstitious could not escape the feeling that 
Heaven itself smiled on the undertaking. The vis- 
iting party who had gone down on a little steamer 
from New Bedford, found, on their arrival, that 
Prof, and Mrs. Agassiz had been there a week to 
begin the initiatory work, and hold dedicatory exer- 
cises for the new school for Naturalists. 

The day was serene and lovely, and everything 
about the island was as inviting as could be desired 
by those who were to spend two months in such 
pursuits with so able a corps of professors. The 
domicile lately occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Anderson 
as a summer home, was the perfection of neatness 
and order, appropriately furnished w r ith every 
household appliance for an elegant house, just as 



y SCIENCE. 

the Andersons had left it. " Mrs. Agassiz," wrote 
one of the guests at the time, " a lady of noble 
presence and special grace of bearing, with a face 
full of benevolence, and having rare culture and 
conversational powers, is peculiarly fitted to make 
the home of such a company of professors and stu- 
dents, in which there are sixteen ladies, and to be 
graced also by the presence of the wife of Prof. 
Burt G. Wilder, of Cornell, a charming circle. 
This may be well understood and appreciated 
when it is known that Mrs. Agassiz had accompa- 
nied the professor in all his travels in this country, 
and was co-author with him in the large illustrated 
volume, issued by Ticknor & Co., on their journey 
in Brazil. Wherever he has traveled in America 
she has for the most part been the recorder of his 
discoveries, and the relator of the events of the 
journeys. She holds a most graceful and vigorous 
pen. This tribute is fully due to her. She is here 
also to help initiate this noble enterprise." 

XIII. 

On leaving the Anderson house, the company, 
numbering about sixty, were taken over the fresh 



SCIENCE. 



71 



lawn to view the island and inspect the unfinished 
buildings for the dormitories and laboratories, and 
then to the large barn temporarily to be used as a 
lecture-room. The carpenters had just finished 
laying a hard pine floor, and with the great doors 
open, and the sea-breeze flowing in, the company 
took seats, and, without formality, the exercises 
began. 

XIV. 

After a few touching words concerning the mu- 
nificent gift of Mr. Anderson, the Professor invited 
" any person present who felt inclined, to invoke 
the Divine blessing." No one responding, the 
venerable Chief asked " all silently to give thanks 
to the Creator." Heads were at once bowed, 
and there was perfect silence for a few moments. 
But the unspoken whispers of those students of 
Nature, as if borne by angel messengers, reached 
the distant home of John Greenleaf Whittier, from 
whose lyre was breathed his divine poem : — 



72 



SCIENCE. 

XV. 

THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ. 



On the isle of Pcnikese, 

Ringed about by sapphire seas, 

Fanned by breezes salt and cool, 

Stood the Master with his school. 

Over sails that not in vain, 

Wooed the west wind's steady strain, 

Line of coast that low and far 

Stretched its undulating bar, 

Wings aslant along the rim 

Of the waves they stooped to skim, 

Rock and isle and glistening bay, 

Fell the beautiful white day. 

Said the Master to the youth : 

We have come in search of truth, 

Trying with uncertain key 

Door by door of mystery ; 

We are reaching, through His laws, 

To the garment-hem of Cause, 

Him, the endless, unbegun, 

The Unnamable, the One, 

Light of all our light the Source, 

Life of life, and Force of force. 

As with fingers of the blind 

We are groping here to find 

What the hieroglyphics mean 

Of the Unseen in the seen, 

What the Thought which underlies 

Nature's masking and disguise, 



SCIENCE. 

What it is that hides beneath 

Blight and bloom and birth and death, 

By past efforts unavailing, 

Doubt and error, loss and failing, 

Of our weakness made aware, 

On the threshold of our task 

Let us light and guidance ask, 

Let us pause in silent prayer!" 



Then the Master in his place 
Bowed his head a little space, 
And the leaves by soft airs stirred, 
Lapse of wave and cry of bird 
Left the solemn hush unbroken 
Of that wordless prayer unspoken, 
While its wish, on earth unsaid, 
Rose to heaven interpreted. 
As, in life's best hours, we hear 
By the spirit's finer ear 
His low voice within us, thus 
The All-Father heareth us ; 
And his holy ear we pain 
With our noisy words and vain. 
Not for Him our violence 
Storming at the gates of sense, 
His the primal language, his 
The eternal silences ! 



Even the careless heart was moved, 
And the doubting gave assent, 
With a gesture reverent, 
To the Master well -beloved, 
As thin mists are glorified 
By the light they cannot hide, 



73 



74 



SCIENCE. 

All who gazed upon him saw, 
Through its veil of tender awe, 
How his face was still uplit 
By the old sweet look of it, 
Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer, 
And the love that casts out fear 
Who the secret may declare 
Of that brief, unuttered prayer? 
Did the shade before him come 
Of th' inevitable doom, 
Of the end of earth so near, 
And Eternity's new year? 
In the lap of sheltering seas 
Rests the isle of Penikese; 
But the lord of the domain 
Comes not to his own again ; 
Where the eyes that follow fail, 
On a vaster sea his sail 
Drifts beyond our beck and hail ; 
Other lips within its bound 
Shall the laws of life expound ; 
Other eyes from rock and shell 
Read the world's old riddles well ; 
But when breezes light and bland 
Blow from Summer's blossomed land, 
When the air is glad with wings 
And the blithe song-sparrow sings, 
Many an eye with his still face 
Shall the living ones displace, 
Many an ear the word shall seek 
He alone could fitly speak. 
And one name for evermore 
Shall be uttered o'er and o'er 
By the waves that kiss the shore, 
By the curlew's whistle sent 
Down the cool, sea-scented air; 



75 



SCIENCE. 

In all voices known to her 
Nature own her worshiper, 
Half in triumph, half lament. 
Thither Love shall tearful turn, 
Friendship pause uncovered there, 
And the wisest reverence learn 
From the Master's silent prayer. 



XVI. 

Mr. Anderson was of course expected to be 
present, and even the presence of his accomplished 
wife, whom most of the company now met for the 
first time, could only soften in some degree the 
regret which was caused by the reading of the fol- 
lowing letter : 

Tarrytown, N. Y., July 3, 1873. 
Louis Agassiz, Esq. : 

My Dear Professor : I have been confined in my house 
for some days past by an inflammation of the eyes, occasioned 
by exposure to the sun, and I am advised that it would be 
somewhat hazardous to venture from home, and that on the 
sea-side, where I should be still more exposed. I need not 
say how disappointed I feel at my inability to participate in 
the enjoyment which you, in common with those other dis- 
tinguished students of nature who enjoy the privilege of be- 
ing associated with you, must derive from the founding of an 
institution which for a long time you have had so much at 



7 6 



SCIENCE. 



heart, and of which our country, in the estimation of thinking 
men, stands so much in need. While I am aggrieved at my 
inability to attend personally, I am reconciled by the fact that 
Mrs. Anderson and one or two other members of my house- 
hold will have the gratification of being present, and in con- 
veying to you the pleasure I feel in anticipating the great 
results that must surely ensue from the establishment of an 
institution by which our people, and especially the product- 
ive, industrial, and progressive classes, cannot fail to be bene- 
fited without involving in any way the religious or sectarian 
prejudices of any one. With an earnest wish for your suc- 
cess in the work on which you are engaged, and that it may 
endure as a monument of your labors in the cause ot science, 
I am most truly yours, 

John Anderson. 



XVII. 

As this little group of student-teachers and pro- 
fessors raised their heads after this solemn orison 
to the God of Nature, the Master Apostle rose, 
and with the deepest earnestness addressed his 
fir it words to his first class on Penikese Island : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : Were I about to teach a class 
in the ordinary sense I should make a very different begin- 
ning. My intention is not, however, to impart information, 
but to throw the burden of study on you. If I succeed in 



SCIENCE. 



77 



teaching you to observe, my aim will be. attained. I do not 
wish to communicate knowledge to you ; you can gather that 
from a hundred sources ; but to awaken in you a faculty 
which is probably more dormant than the simple power of 
acquisition. Unless that faculty is stimulated, any informa- 
tion I might give you about Natural History would soon fade 
and be gone. I am therefore placed in a somewhat difficult 
and abnormal position for a teacher. I must teach and yet 
not give information. I must, in short, to all intents and 
purposes, be ignorant before you. 

The very first subject to which I will call your attention is 
one where you would naturally come to me with questions. 
Do not ask them, for I shall not answer, but I shall try to lay 
out your w r ork in such a way that you will find your own 
path without too much difficulty. What is the nature of the 
soil, and what is the geological constitution of this island ? 
I believe I know all about it ; but I wish to prepare you to 
solve this problem, which is, by the way, no easy one for 
yourselves. . Try first to find how the island lies. We have 
no compass, but our main building runs East and West. Let 
that be your compass. You will find position an essential 
element in the study of geological characters. Perhaps you 
have already noticed the general outline of our island. You 
may have seen that a gravelly, water-worn neck of land con- 
nects a smaller island with the main one, and that the two 
run parallel. What is the meaning of the curve between 
these two islands ? What is the meaning of the flat beyond 
the curve ? What is the meaning of the loose materials 
about us ? What is the meaning of bowlders scattered over 



73 



SCIENCE. 



the surface ? It would be easy to explain all these features 
upon well-known theories, but I should do you a poor service 
by any' such ready-made interpretation. 

There are many other points to be considered before you 
1 will solve the problem. You must, for instance, distinguish 
the difference between materials in contact with the water, 
and those above it ; between the various dimensions of these 
loose materials and their relative size as found above or 
below the tide level. What relation does the island bear to 
the adjoining - islands ? How are they connected ? When 
you have occasion to do so, extend this inquiry to the main 
land. These are the elements for a comprehensive appreci- 
ation of the way in which this island has been formed. This 
investigation would in itself be enough for a summer's work. 
If you could answer me in two months the questions I have 
put to you here, I should say you have indeed done well. I 
want you to learn practically how wide is the field of science ; 
how much investigation of a valuable kind may be found 
even in this small area. And the methods of investigation 
you apply here will enable you to examine the same subjects 
wherever you live. You will find the same elements of 
instruction all about you, where you are each teaching ; and 
you can take your classes out and show them the same les- 
sons, and lead them to the same subjects you are now study- 
ing here. And this mode of teaching children is so natural, 
so suggestive, so true ! That is the charm of teaching from 
Nature herself. No one can warp her to suit his own views. 
She brings us back to absolute truth as often as we wander. 

Until our apparatus comes, of various sorts which has not 



SCIENCE. 



79 



arrived, we must occupy ourselves with the geology, and I 
would advise you to begin by collecting all the various kinds 
of rock on the island. You will be surprised to hear, per- 
haps, that you will find on this small space three-fourths, 
perhaps nine-tenths, of all the rocks in the United States. 



XVIII. 

The Deed to the Island and fifty thousand dol- 
lars towards the endowment, were placed in Pro- 
fessor Agassiz's hands, and the inauguration of 
Anderson School of Natural History was 
complete. The students went out from the Barn- 
Temple to learn their first practical lesson, and 
the guests left for their homes. The Master re- 
mained on the island. 

XIX. 

The following was the Deed of Trust : 

This Indenture made the twenty-first day of April, in 
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
seventy-three, between John Anderson of the city, county, 
and State of New York, and Kate Anderson his wife, parties 
of the first part, and Louis Agassiz, Alexander E. R. Agassiz, 
Thomas G. Cary, Martin Brimmer, and Theodore Lyman, 
respectively of Cambridge in the county of Middlesex, and 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, parties of the second part. 



So SCIENCE. 

Whereas it has been proposed to found a Normal School 
for the instruction of teachers and students in natural history, 
in connection with the corporation at present existing at 
Cambridge aforesaid, under charter from the Legislature of 
the said Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and known as 
" The Museum of Comparative Zoology," and the said John 
Anderson, party hereto of the first part, has agreed to grant 
and convey, as a location for the summer sessions of the said 
School, and for the general purposes thereof, in all future 
time, the island of Penikese, situate and described as herein- 
after stated ; and further to endow the said proposed School 
with the sum of fifty thousand dollars as hereinafter men- 
tioned. And whereas the said parties of the second part 
have consented to become the Trustees of the said endow- 
ment, Now this Indenture Witnesseth, that, in con- 
sideration of the premises, and also in consideration of the 
sum of one dollar by the said parties of the second part to the 
said parties of the first part in hand paid at or before the 
sealing and delivery of these presents, the receipt whereof is 
hereby acknowledged. 

They the said parties of the first part have given, granted, 
bargained, sold, released, conveyed, and quitted claim, and 
by these presents do give, grant, bargain, sell, release, con- 
vey, and quit-claim unto the said parties of the second part 
and their heirs and the survivors and survivor of them and 
their heirs in joint tenancy and not as tenants in common, 
all and singular the island of Penikese, commonly called 
Pune, situate, lying, and being in Buzzard's Bay, in Gosnold, 
Duke's County, and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, what- 
soever number of acres the same may contain, together with 
the dwelling-house, barns, buildings, and other erections 
thereon standing and being, and all and singular the appur- 
tenances thereunto belonging, being the same premises men- 
tioned and described in a deed from Beriah E. Manchester 
to the said John Anderson, dated the 30th day of March, 
1867, and recorded in Duke's County land records on the 2d 
day of April, 1867, in liber 43, page 97. Saving and reserving 
thereout a small piece or parcel of land at the northeastern 
extremity of the said island, the contents whereof are un- 
known, but which is separated from the body of the said 
island by a narrow sand-bank or causeway, and which it is 
proposed to distinguish from the property intended, to be 



SCIENCE. 8 1 

hereby conveyed by a line to be drawn through said cause- 
way, midway between the piece of land so reserved and the 
property so intended to be conveyed. And the said John 
Anderson, party of the first part, does hereby also for the 
considerations aforesaid give, grant, assign, transfer, and set 
over unto the said parties of the second part two certain 
certificates of stock of the city of New York, known as " Cen- 
tral Park Additional Fund Stock of 1874," dated respectively 
the 3d of July, 1863, and payable on the 1st day of November, 
1874, for the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars each, bear- 
ing interest at six per cent, per annum payable quarterly, 
making together the sum of fifty thousand dollars. To have 
and to hold all and singular the premises and securities 
hereby conveyed and assigned to them the said parties of the 
second part and their heirs and to the survivors or survivor of 
them and their heirs in joint tenancy for their own use forever. 
Upon strict trust and confidence, nevertheless, as to the said 
island of Penikese and the real estate hereby conveyed, that 
the same shall be held and used at all times exclusively for 
the erection of buildings, and the maintenance, improvement, 
and extension thereof, and for the establishment and mainten- 
ance thereon of a School or Institution for the instruction of 
teachers and other students in natural history in connection 
with the said Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge 
aforesaid, during such periods and seasons of the year as 
may be practicable, and for all such farming and general 
uses and purposes as may be most conducive to the interests 
of the said proposed school or institution wheresoever its 
courses or terms shall be held. And as to the said endow- 
ment fund of fifty thousand dollars hereby given and granted 
upon further strict trust and confidence to invest the same 
or so much thereof as may not be used and employed in the 
construction of buildings or for other purposes connected 
with the immediate operations of the said proposed School 
or institution under the authoritv for that purpose hereinafter 
contained in such good and sufficient securities as the said 
Trustees may deem most beneficial, with power to vary such 
investments from time to time in their discretion, so, how- 
ever, that the annual interest of such investments may be- 
come and be a permanent fund in the hands of the said 
Trustees and their successors, and be applied perpetually 
hereafter towards the support and maintenance of the said 



82 SCIENCE. 

proposed School or Institution. And it is hereby provided 
and declared that the Trustees of the said endowment shall, 
as a primary organization, consist of the parties hereto of the 
second part, and of such additional Trustee as the said John 
Anderson may hereafter appoint under the power hereinafter 
reserved to him for that purpose, and that one of said Trus- 
tees shall at all times hereafter preside over the institution as 
the President and Director thereof. And that the said Louis 
Agassiz, hereinbefore named, shall be the first President of 
the Board of Trustees, and Director of the said School, and 
that he and his successors, to be appointed, as hereinafter 
provided, shall trom time to time appoint the teachers in said 
School, and shall select and employ the lecturers in the vari- 
ous classes of instruction therein. And it is hereby lurther 
declared that the said Louis Agassiz and each of his succes- 
sors in perpetuity be and he is hereby expressly authorized 
and empowered by an instrument in writing" to be signed by 
him, and to be deposited under his seal in the archives of the 
said School, to nominate and declare who shall be his succes- 
sor as such President and Director ; and that upon the hap- 
pening of a vacancy in said office by death or resignation, the 
person so named shall become and be the future President 
and Director, with like power to nominate his successor. 
Provided, however, that nothing herein contained shall pre- 
vent the said President and Director from revoking- any writ- 
ten appointment of a successor once made, and substituting 
the name of any other person as he may deem expedient. 
And it is hereby further provided and declared that five of 
the Trustees of this endowment, including the President and 
Director, shall be resident within the Commonwealth of Mas- 
sachusetts, and that one of said resident Trustees shall always 
be the Treasurer of the said institution ; and that the said 
Thomas G. Cary hereinbefore named shall be the first Trus- 
tee and Treasurer thereof ; and in case of any vacancy oc- 
curring by death, resignation, or otherwise among the said 
resident Trustees other than the said President and Director, 
such vacancy, as well in the office of Trustee as in that of 
Trustee and Treasurer, shall be filled by a vote of a major 
part of the whole Board of Trustees at a meeting to be con- 
vened for that purpose. Provided further, and it is hereby 
understood and agreed, that the said John Anderson may at 
any time before the incorporation of the Trustees hereof as a 



SCIENCE. 83 

body politic, by an instrument under his hand and seal, nomi- 
nate a Trustee, to be a resident of the city of New York, in 
addition to the Trustees herein named, with all and every the 
powers and authority hereby given and granted, and declare 
how future vacancies in the place of such Trustee shall be 
filled ; and upon such appointment the Trustees herein named 
shall forthwith, by proper deed or deeds, convey and assign 
to such newly appointed Trustee a joint interest in the premi- 
ses and property hereby conveyed upon the same trusts as 
they themselves hold the same estate and property. Provided 
also that in any act to be passed for incorporating the said 
Trustees, provision shall be made for a Trustee to be nomi- 
nated from, and to be resident in, the city of New York ; and 
for filling any future vacancies to be created by the death or 
. resignation of any such Trustee in manner to be specified and 
declared by such instrument in writing. And it is hereby 
further provided and declared that whensoever any vacancy 
shall occur in the number of the said Trustees by resignation, 
the Trustee or Trustees so resigning shall as a prerequisite 
thereto execute a valid and sufficient release of all his or their 
interest in the real and personal estate to the remaining Trus- 
tees or Trustee, so as thereby to vest the same in them or 
him upon the trusts hereinbefore expressed ; and upon the 
election of any new Trustee or Trustees in manner herein 
prescribed, the other and remaining Trustees or Trustee 
shall by proper deed or deeds convey and assign to him the 
share or part of the Trustees or Trustee in whose place he 
may be chosen as aforesaid, to hold upon the same trusts as 
they themselves hold the same estate and property. And the 
said Trustees are hereby authorized and empowered to apply 
so much ot the said endowment fund of fifty thousand dollars 
as may be requisite in founding and establishing the said 
School, as well as for the erection of such laboratories, dor- 
mitories, and other buildings on the said island of Penikese 
as may be immediately required for commencing the opera- 
tions of the said School, as for the general support and main- 
tenance thereof during the present and succeeding year ; it 
being, however, understood that whenever the amount to be 
thus expended can be made good from any other funds of the 
said institution, the same shall be repaid to the endowment 
fund, and be invested with the remainder of such fund as a 
permanent source of revenue for the support of the said 



8 4 



SCIENCE. 



School. And the said Trustees are hereby further em- 
powered to make all necessary by-laws and regulations for 
the government of the said Institution, and for calling and 
regulating the meetings of the said Trustees, and such by- 
laws and regulations from time to time to alter and amend as 
occasion may require. And whereas it is one great aim and 
object of this present endowment that the said proposed 
School or Institution should ever hereafter be carried on and 
conducted in connection with the said " Museum of Com- 
parative Zoology" at Cambridge aforesaid, and should be 
constituted as tar as such object can be attained as the edu- 
cational branch of the said Museum, which on its part should 
supply the collections and specimens necessary for the use of 
the School and lor the instruction of the students thereof, it is 
therefore hereby expressly provided that the Trustees be, 
and they are hereby, authorized and empowered to make and 
execute all such contracts and agreements, as" well with the 
Trustees of the said Museum as with the President and Fel- 
lows of Harvard College, as may be necessary for effecting an 
arrangement by which the exclusive instruction of students 
from both those institutions may be vested in the said pro- 
posed Natural History School upon such terms as may be 
mutually beneficial, and for furthering generally the interests 
of education in natural history in said School. And it is 
hereby further provided and declared, that if and whensoever 
it shall be found expedient to procure the incorporation of the 
Trustees of the said proposed School by any Act of the Legis- 
lature of the said Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the 
purposes herein mentioned, such Act of the Legislature being 
in all respects conformable with the spirit, intent, and mean- 
ing of these presents, then and in such case all and singular 
the premises and trust-funds hereby given and granted shall 
forthwith after the passing of such Act become and be vested 
in the corporation to be thereby created, with all and every 
the powers hereby given and granted ; and the Trustees 
hereof and their successors shall thereupon make, execute, 
and deliver all deeds or instruments in the law which may be 
necessary for lawfully vesting the same in such corporation. 
And the said parties of the first part for themselves, their 
heirs, executors, and administrators, do covenant with the 
parties of the second part, their heirs and successors, that 
they are, or one of them is, seized in fee simple of the lands 



SCIENCE. 



§5 



and premises hereby conveyed, and that they are free from all 
encumbrances. In witness whereof the said John Anderson, 
party hereto of the first part, together with the said Kate An- 
derson his wife, in token of her release of all right and title of 
Or to both dower and homestead in the same premises, and also 
the said parties of the second part, have hereunto severally and 
respectively set their hands and seals the day and year first 
before written. 

JOHN ANDERSON. [seal.] 

KATE ANDERSON. [seal.] 

L. AGASSIZ. [SEAL.] 

ALEX. E. R. AGASSIZ. [seal.] 

THOS. G. CARY. [seal.] 

MARTIN BRIMMER. [seal.] 

THEODORE LYMAN. [seal.] 

Sealed and delivered by the above-named John Anderson, 
Kate Anderson, Louis Agassiz, and Thomas G. Cary, in 
the presence of witness P. A. Pierce. 

J. Henry Blake, witness for A. E. R. Agassiz ; Edward 
Palmer, witness for M. Brimmer ; Chas. A. Whittier, 
witness for Theodore Lyman. 

Then personally appeared the w T ithin-named John Ander- 
son, Louis Agassiz, and Thomas G. Cary, and acknowledged 
this to be their free act and deed. Before me, this 21st day. 
of April, 1873. 

P. A. Pierce, 

Justice of the Peace. 



■ This indenture made the first day of March, in the year 
one thousand eight hundred and seventy-four, between John 
Anderson of the city, county, and State of New York, and 
Kate Anderson his wife, parties of the first part, and Alexan- 
der Agassiz, Thomas G. Cary, Martin Brimmer, Theodore 
Lyman, and L. F. de Pourtales, Trustees as hereafter men- 
tioned, parties of the second part. Whereas, in and by a 
certain indenture dated the twenty-first day of April, one 
thousand' eight hundred and seventy-three, and made be- 



86 SCIENCE. 

tween the said John Anderson and wife, parties of the first 
part, and Louis Agassiz, Alexander Agassiz, Thomas G. Gary, 
Martin Brimmer, and Theodore Lyman, parties of second 
part, -they the said parties of the first part, for the considera- 
tions therein mentioned, granted, bargained, sold, and con- 
veyed to the said parties of the second part and the survivors 
and survivor of them and the heirs and assigns of such survi- 
vor as joint tenants and not as tenants in common all and 
singular the island of Penikese, commonly called Pune, situ- 
ate, lying, and being in Buzzard's Bay, Duke's County, and 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, whatsoever number of acres 
the same might contain, with the appurtenances, saving and 
reserving thereout a small piece or parcel of land at .the 
northeastern extremity of the said island, the contents of 
which were unknown, but which was separated from the 
body of the said island by a narrow sand-bank or causeway, 
and which it was proposed to distinguish from the property 
thereby conveyed by a line to be drawn through said cause- 
way, midway between the piece of land so reserved and the 
property so thereby conveyed ; to hold all and singular the 
premises aforesaid unto the said parties of the second part 
upon the trusts and subject to the conditions therein stated. 
And whereas the parties hereto of the second part are the 
present Trustees of the said indenture, and the parties of the 
first part are desirous of conveying and releasing - to them as 
such Trustees the piece or parcel of land reserved in and by 
the said recited indenture upon the same trusts and for the 
same purposes as are mentioned and contained in the said 
indenture touching the residue of the said island of Penikese, 

NOW THEREFORE THIS INDENTURE WITNESSETH, that, in 

consideration of the premises, and also for and in considera- 
tion of one dollar by the said parties of the second part to the 
said parties of the first part in hand paid at or before the 
sealing and delivery of these presents, the receipt whereof is 
hereby acknowledged, they the said parties of the first part 
have granted, bargained, sold, released, conveyed, and quitted 
claim, and by these presents do grant, bargain, sell, release, 
convey, and quit-claim unto the said parties of the second 
part, their heirs and assigns, and the survivors and survivor 
of them and their heirs in joint tenancy, and not as tenants in 
common, all and singular that certain plot, piece, or parcel of 
land, being part and parcel of the island of Penikese mentioned 



SCIENCE. 



37 



and described in the said recited indenture, and being the 
parcel or section of land specially reserved to the said parties 
of the first part by the said recited indenture, whatsoever 
number of acres the same may contain, together with all and 
every the sand-bank or causeway connecting the same with 
the residue of the said island, and all and singular the rights, 
members, and appurtenances to the same belonging; to have 
and to hold the same to the said parties of the second part 
and their heirs and the survivors and survivor of them and 
their heirs in joint tenancy, and not as tenants in common, 
upon such and the same trusts, and with, under, and subject 
to the same conditions and limitations as are mentioned, ex- 
pressed, and declared in and by the said indenture of the 
twenty-second day of April, one thousand eight hundred and 
seventy-three. 

In witness whereof the said parties of the first part have 
hereunto set their hands and affixed their seals the day and 
year first above written, the said Kate Anderson signing and 
executing these presents in token of her release of all right or 
title of or to both dower and homestead in the said premises. 



Sealed and delivered in the presence JOHN ANDERSON. 



SEAL.] 



of William Girod. KATE ANDERSON, [SEAL.] 

City of New Bedford, ss. 

Then personally appeared the above-named John Anderson 
and acknowledged the foregoing instrument to be his free act 
and deed. 

Before me, P. A. Pierce, 

Justice of the Peace. 



Know all men by these presents, That I, John Ander- 
son, of the city, county, and State of New York, under and by 
virtue and in exercise of the power and authority to me re- 
served in and by a certain deed of gift and settlement dated 
on or about the twenty-first day of April, one thousand eight 
hundred and seventy-three, and made between me the said 
John Anderson and Kate Anderson, my wife, of the first part, 
and Louis Agassiz, since deceased, Alexander E. R. Agassiz, 



88 SCIENCE. 

Thomas G. Cary, Martin Brimmer, and Theodore Lyman, 
Trustees for the purposes therein mentioned, of the second 
part, and under and by virtue of all the other powers me 
thereunto enabling, have nominated, constituted and ap- 
pointed, and by these presents do nominate, constitute and 
appoint, the Honorable John A. Dix, now being Governor of 
the State ot New York, and Professor Frederick A. P. Bar- 
nard, President of Columbia College, in the city of New York, 
to be Trustees of the said deed of settlement of and from the 
city of New York, jointly with the Trustees heretofore named 
therein or their successors, with all and the powers and 
authorities given and granted, and subject to all the conditions 
mentioned and contained in the same deed, as fully and 
effectually as if they, the said John A. Dix and Frederick A. 
P. Barnard, had been originally named as Trustees of the 
same. 

In witness whereof, I, the said John Anderson, have here- 
unto set my hand and seal this twenty-seventh day of April, 
in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-four. 

JOHN ANDERSON, [l. s. ] 

Sealed and delivered ) WTTrT1 , /~ T „~-^ 
■ ,, c r William Girod. 

in the presence of j 



HOME-LIFE. 

I. 

As this brief Sketch was not intended to be a 
Eulogy, it has avoided laudation. It should be 
regarded only as a tribute of affection for qualities 
which endear, and deeds which inspire admiration 
and respect. Thus far we have spoken of some of 
those more prominent acts of munificence which 
sprang from Love of the Country of his birth, Love 
of Liberty everywhere, and Love of Science as the 
promoter of civilization. Nor is it pretended that 
in any of these respects h'is friends claim for him 
equality with, much less precedence over, a host of 
others whose shining names are emblazed on the 
scrolls of benefactions for the good of mankind. 
But it may not be indelicate nor invidious to desig- 
nate some of those characteristics of his benevo- 
lence which distinguished him above so many who 
may have given larger sums from ampler fortunes, 

and thus received higher praise. 

8 9 



9° 



HOME-LIFE, 



II. 



Discretion in giving often adds vastly to the 
value of the gift, while not to give wisely is often 
one of the most fatal forms of prodigality. To 
choose worthy objects alone, is not enough, nor to 
embarrass the gift by restrictions which may lessen 
its utility, and thereby impair or defeat the ob- 
ject of the giver. Examples of this kind have 
abounded in every age and country. Mr. Ander- 
son's benefactions were distinguished by excep- 
tional wisdom. He not only selected objects 
abundantly worthy of assistance, but the times 
w T hen his thousands did more for the causes he 
espoused, than other men's millions coming too 
late. Garibaldi gratefully attributed the decisive 
victory of Caserta in no small degree, to the arrival 
of his old comrade Avezzana on the very eve of 
that fierce engagement. So, too, when the crisis 
came in our home-conflict for the preservation of 
the Union, and no other citizen volunteered to 
meet the emergency, Anderson led the way, and 
halting patriotism followed. Again, when Massa- 
chusetts refused the prayer of the great Agassiz 



HOME-LIFE. gi 

for aid to found an ocean-school for teachers of 
Natural History, he sent a lightning despatch to 
the Master, begging him to withdraw the spurned 
petition, for he would give him his own summer- 
home island for his school. So much for the 
wisdom and prevision, so strikingly displayed in 
choosing the right moment to aid the holy inte- 
rests for which the champions of Democracy, Lib- 
erty, and Science ever battled. 



in. 



Having now escaped the hard toil of early days, 
the confinement and solicitudes of a great and ex- 
acting business, and those harassing perplexities 
which oftener bring into the domestic circles of 
the rich, more troubles than cloud the dwellings of 
the less opulent, Mr. Anderson resigned all thought 
of further accumulation, and retired to his Tarry- 
town estate, on which he had for years bestowed so 
much taste and expenditure. Marriages and death 
had relieved him from former family responsibili- 
ties ; but they had left him solitary and without a 
home. He could, however, find a remedy for both. 
For the first, in a fortunate alliance which was ac- 



g 2 HOME-LIFE. 

complished with the lady of his choice, and long 
the object of his esteem and affection — for the 
second in as beautiful a dwelling as art, money, 
and taste could construct. 

IV. 

Mr. Anderson's persistence in whatever he under- 
took, soon rose to enthusiasm, and he went to work 
on his house with an earnestness that might have 
shamed a young man of thirty, although he was 
then in his sixty-sixth year. He had in early life 
acquired a practical knowledge of masonry and 
building materials, and at a later period made a 
careful study of architecture, which fully qualified 
him to elaborate his own plans, and superintend 
their execution. The design of the villa was sug- 
gested to him by a very beautiful house that he 
saw in Tuscany; and adopted, with such modifica- 
tions as his own taste suggested. It was to be 
built of the finest brick, trimmed with argillaceous 
stone quarried on the place, and in the style so 
perfectly represented by the accompanying engrav- 
ing. The eye of the tourist or visitor to Sleepy 
Hollow, is always attracted by the spot and the 



HOME-LIFE. 93 

structure. Seen from the highway nothing can be 
more picturesque. The rolling greensward stretch- 
ing away to the north, dotted with chestnuts, oaks 
and hemlocks, with glimpses between of the silver 
Pocantico gliding toward the Hudson ; the blue top 
of the distant Hook Mountain, and the flashing ex- 
panse of the Tappan Zee, and Haverstraw Bay, 
make up a picture hardly rivalled by the Bay of 
Naples, or the most entrancing landscapes of the 
storied Rhine. The park itself, consisting of two 
hundred acres of hill, dale and forest, had already 
been brought to a comparative perfection of land- 
scape gardening seldom attained in America. The 
owner took especial pride in the grounds, for he 
had for years during his busy life, personally super- 
intended their laying out and embellishment. Nor 
is it improbable that he found his chief, and per- 
haps only solace, at that period, in these refreshing 
and delightful employments ; for it is beneficently 
designed that the man who has grown tired with 
hard and honest toil, and weary of the hollowness 
and selfishness of the world, can find a soothing 
balm for life's sad experiences if he can go back and 
commune with Nature, and lay his weary head on 
that maternal bosom which is ever ready to em- 



94 



HOME-LIFE. 



brace all the disconsolate, if they be her loving 
children. During the pleasant months of the year, 
his figure grew familiar to the inhabitants. Dressed 
in a blue flannel suit, and wearing a slouched hat, 
he could be seen on his lawns or among his trees, 
directing his workmen, devising new roads, con- 
structing drains, or opening new vistas through the 
groves. 



v. 



And now in this period of tranquillity and leisure 
the master saw his edifice slowly rising under hon- 
est days' work, month after month, and season af- 
ter season, until its wails stood out clear, massive, 
and chaste against the evening sky. 

Mr. Anderson's home-life was a quiet and pecu- 
liar one. He found in the cares of his estate, and 
the companionship of his wife, the occupation and 
the rest he desired. 

And in this respect he was no doubt an excep- 
tion to most of the men who, after a life of intense 
commercial activity, become recluses in the coun- 
try. As a rule, the seclusion and uneventful round 
of domesticity, grow unbearable, and they break 



HOME-LIFE. 



95 



away again into some kind of active employment — 
generally to make a financial mistake. 

VI. 

No doubt more depends upon the character of 
the man's companion in retirement, than is gener- 
ally supposed. In this respect he was peculiarly 
fortunate. It will be a good many years before the 
people of Sleepy Hollow and its neighborhood, will 
forget the lady of the manor, whose tireless en- 
ergy, womanly charities, unpretentious but unend- 
ing goodness, made her one of the best known and 
the most welcome of the residents. Her husband 
relied upon her judgment, not only in matters of 
taste, but in the management of his local interests, 
while her fund of knowledge, her quick adaptability 
of temperament and executive skill, were never de- 
pended upon in vain. 

In all his travels abroad, she was his sole com- 
panion, and he delighted in nothing so much, when 
those travels were over, as to listen to her relations 
of their interviews with Garibaldi, Avezzana, and 
other eminent men. Those whom he welcomed as 
guests under his hospitable roof, vividly recall those 



9 6 



HOME-LIFE. 



evenings, which were enriched by the infinite fund 
of anecdote and description with which they were 
enlivened, by the pleasantry and wit of Mrs. An- 
derson. 

VII. 

He had not the slightest tinge of misanthropy 
in his nature ; but he hated all shams from the 
bottom of his heart, and for all ostentation and 
insincerity he had the supremest contempt. He 
was too genial and benevolent to unnecessarily 
wound the feelings of others. But when any ex- 
pression of meanness or inhumanity, was indulged 
in his presence, he gave free play to his scorn and 
indignation. 

His keen appreciation of the society of men of 
talent and culture, and how much he enjoyed 
their conversation, showed how feeble was the 
hold which a dedication of fifty years to business, 
had upon his higher nature. Few even of his very 
intimate friends really understood his character; 
he was of a very retiring disposition, and only 
those he loved and respected could draw him out 
and see him as he was. 



HOME-LIFE. 



VIII. 



97 



The following will illustrate just how he felt 
with regard to making money : An old friend visit- 
ing him at his home, said one day, " Why is it I 
never see you in New York, John ? your life-long 
friends miss you ?" — " Oh," said he, " I seldom go 
for the simple reason that I have no desire to be 
once more brought into the whirl of business and 
money-making in general. Why, my dear W., I 
would not cross that threshold if any man were to 
show that by so doing I could make fifty thousand 
dollars ; I have got enough, and it takes too much 
of my time now to take care of it." Many 
thought him unsocial because he devoted his days 
to superintending his men on the place, and his 
evenings to his readings and his family. He re- 
marked in conversation with a friend, " I am never 
lonesome here in this little room," meaning a room 
which he occupied as his favorite office, " for my 
little family is a perfect encyclopedia for me even- 
ings, and my grounds a daily delight." 

Italian workmen are skilled, but our Americans 
were yet crude, requiring a great deal of superin- 



g8 HOME-LIFE. 

tending ; hence their carelessness and incapacity 
gave him much trouble. Many and many a time 
he would come in at night completely discouraged. 
But morning found him bright and active, at work 
again ; and so he persevered until it was all com- 
pleted. In consequence of waiting to have it 
frescoed, he furnished only part of the house ; he 
waited, alas ! for a time that he was destined never 
to see. 

IX. 

His generosity of heart often made him the 
victim of the lazy and improvident, and for which 
he never received thanks ; for that class of people 
seem to think if a man is rich he ought to give it 
all away, and if he does not, he gets soundly 
abused. Mr. Anderson gave thousands and thou- 
sands away that nobody but himself and family 
knew of, for no worthy appeal was ever made to 
him in vain. 

He was one of the most domestic men in the 
world ; everything around him had to be scru- 
pulously neat, and the shiftlessness of others fre- 
quently disturbed him. Often, after the fatigues 
of the day, he would sit for hours over his favorite 



HOME-LIFE. 



99 



authors, and long after midnight retire apparently 
much refreshed. He never was what would be 
called an early riser, generally breakfasting between 
ten and eleven in the morning, and sparingly of 
the daintiest food, dining at three, and a simple 
cup of tea at night was all he partook of during 
the twenty-four hours. 

He loved little children, and they loved him ; he 
might frequently be seen in front of his door with 
from ten to twenty of them hanging on to his 
fingers and coat, and all enjoying themselves — he 
himself the youngest of the party. His home-life 
at Tarry town for almost ten years, he often said, 
was the realization of a dream of peace after the 
stormy period of earlier years. 



x. 



Tarrytown is a peculiarly insular and provincial 
place. A gentleman of wealth and culture could 
not find this side of the Rocky Mountains, a safer 
place to escape from his kind, if he so desired. 

Like most suburban towns, it has no source of 
vitality in itself. Its inhabitants are, to a con- 
siderable extent, made up of the better class who 



100 HOME-LIFE. 

go to the city in the winter, but who, both in sum- 
mer and winter, depend upon the city for their 
necessities, their luxuries, and their society ; to 
this class may be added the natives, who, for the 
most part, are the most rural and rustic that can 
be found on the banks of the Hudson. They have 
not altered in any respect by the influx of " landed 
gentry," since the days of Ichabod Crane. 

When such men as John Anderson settle in 
such a place, their influence is immeasurable, but 
as a rule is not appreciated until the men are gone. 
Mr. Anderson has left the record of his liberality 
and enterprise indelibly wrought in the town itself. 
He beautified its wards ; he improved its architec- 
ture ; he erected memorials ; he had its history 
written up and preserved. 

In all that was sanative, artistic and patriotic, 
he outstripped the most liberal of his neighbors, 
and in all his work, quietly and skillfully performed, 
he had the advice and the constant assistance of 
his wife. 

XL 

Although not attached to any particular church, 
yet he gave freely to all, and without ostentation. 



HOME-LIFE. IO i 

He had a very spiritual nature, and loved, when 
alone with his family, to converse on spiritual 
things, and cheerfully of the Life to come. On 
Christmas Eve, before they moved into the new 
house, he was seated in his large arm-chair which 
had been the favorite seat of his neighbor, Wash- 
ington Irving, for whom he had great love and 
respect. A friend was reading at a table in the 
same room, in a low voice to Mrs. Anderson ; and 
after some time Mr. Anderson asked what they 
were reading. They answered, " The Sermon 011 
the Mount." "Oh," he said, "would you be good 
enough to read it to me? " which they did. After- 
wards he made some comments on the perfect life 
of our Saviour. When they had finished, happening 
to look up, they saw him in tears. He then men- 
tioned that he seemed to understand more of the 
life of Christ that night, than he ever had before, 
and displayed the deepest feeling. 

Being of a very quick temper, he often said 
things for which he was very sorry the next mo- 
ment. To illustrate how well this was understood 
by those by whom he was surrounded : An old 
servant who had been in his employment for 
twenty-five years, on hearing of his death said, 



I0 2 HOME-LIFE. 

while tears ran down his face, " Well, I don't care if 
he did scold me sometimes ; I would rather have 
his fault-finding than any other man's praise, for 
the good was always in his heart." 

For the last year before his death there was a 
visible change in him in many respects. His 
general health was not as good for one thing, and 
at times he did not take quite so keen an interest 
in many things connected with his business affairs. 
All through life he had a greaf passion for the sea- 
side, and after he owned Penikese, would often go 
there in winter, and spend several weeks at a time, 
and appear perfectly happy. 

XII. 

In October of t88o he concluded to go abroad 
and again visit his old friend Garibaldi, with whom 
he had maintained an unbroken correspondence. 
With his wife, he sailed on the French steamer 
France, for Havre, the fifth of October. All 
through the voyage he seemed to be suffering from 
a severe cold, which continued until they arrived at 
Paris. He was unable to leave the hotel for 
several weeks ; not so much on account of his cold. 



HOME-LIFE. 



103 



as trouble with his teeth. The last time he was 
able to go out was to his dentist. Three days after- 
wards he was attacked with acute pneumonia, and 
although he had the first physician in Paris, he 
gradually grew worse, until the morning of the 
twenty-second of November, when he breathed his 
last. He did not think, up to the very last hour, 
that he was going to die. For several hours he 
had been perfectly free from pain, and it seemed 
to him that he must soon recover. An old friend 
in the room at the time, said that he passed 
away like a child, with a tranquil smile on his 
face. 

If the one to whom this slight tribute is paid 
could have foreseen the place and circumstances of 
his death, they could hardly have cast a shadow 
over his departing spirit. His work was finished, 
and the last days and even hours of his illness, 
were cheered by the tender ministrations of her 
whom he loved best of all beings on earth. He was 
also sustained by the strong support of one of the 
noblest and manliest of his old comrades, who 
had by his side fought victoriously the battle of 
life. His passage to the Summer Land, beautifully 
illustrates Gray's touching lines : 



I0 4 HOME-LIFE. 

" On some fond breast the parting soul relies ; 
Some pious drops the closing eye requires ; 
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries ; 
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires." 



Mrs. Anderson returned with the body to New 
York, arriving the day before New Year's. It was 
unostentatiously laid in the magnificent family 
tomb, which had been long erected, and of which 
an exact drawing is seen in the close of this ME- 
MORIAL Tribute. 

REST THEE AT LAST. 



THE END. 



